Country Joe McDonald, whose performance at Woodstock struck a chord so deep it often obscured the variety and scope of his career, died on Saturday. He was 84.<\/p>\n
The cause was complications from Parkinson\u2019s disease, his band announced on social media. Their statement did not provide further details.<\/p>\n
In his breakthrough years, McDonald led Country Joe and the Fish, one of the first and most adventurous bands to rise from the Bay Area psychedelic rock scene of the 1960s. After the band\u2019s main run ended in 1970, he released scores of solo albums in a number of styles over many decades.<\/p>\n
Yet, it was his showcase at Woodstock in 1969, immortalised by its film and soundtrack, that came to define him for many. At Woodstock, he spiked the main refrain of The Fish Cheer with a provocative F-word, before beginning his best-known anti-Vietnam<\/a> War song.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the moment I yelled \u2018Give us an f …\u2019 it became a folk-protest moment,\u201d McDonald told the Independent in 2002. \u201cThere was a certain in-your-face Kurt Cobain-ness about it that matched the attitude of the time pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n Likewise, McDonald\u2019s albums with the Fish, for which he wrote and sang most of the material, perfectly mirrored the experimentalism and politics of the psychedelic scene that birthed them.<\/p>\n At the same time, the group\u2019s work augmented the era\u2019s usual guitar distortions and drug references with arcane melodies, leftfield lyrics and influences that also drew from ragtime, old-time folk and the avant-garde.<\/p>\n The Fish\u2019s first single, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, centred on a death-obsessed woman who also had a yen for homicide, while another early song, Superbird, imagined US<\/a> president Lyndon B Johnson as a lunatic cartoon character.<\/p>\n The tone of the politics and social commentary in McDonald\u2019s songs could range from whimsical to snarky. In The Harlem Song, he satirised white people\u2019s fetish for black culture, while in I-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag, he sang in the voice of a TV pitchman selling parents on the chance to \u201cbe the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box\u201d. The song culminated in the ironic refrain, \u201cWhoopee! We\u2019re all gonna die!\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Rory Gallagher and his band Taste almost played WoodstockOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n While two of McDonald\u2019s albums with the Fish broke Billboard\u2019s top 40, the band never came close to achieving the success enjoyed by other acts from the San Francisco scene such as Jefferson Airplane or the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n And none of McDonald\u2019s solo works made Billboard\u2019s album chart. Yet, he remained true to his musical instincts and lyrical themes. Long after the Vietnam War ended, he continued to write about its effects and legacy, captured best in his 1986 album Vietnam Experience, which features 12 of his songs on the subject.<\/p>\n Joseph Allen McDonald was born on January 1st, 1942, in Washington to Worden McDonald, who worked for the phone company, and Florence Plotnik, a political activist. His parents were members of the Communist Party and they named him after Josef Stalin<\/a>.<\/p>\n