NEW YORK (AP) — “Nation” Joe McDonald, a hippie rock star of the Sixties whose “I-Really feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a four-lettered rebuke to the Vietnam Struggle that grew to become an anthem for protesters and a spotlight of the Woodstock music competition, died Sunday. He was 84.
McDonald, who carried out along with his band, Nation Joe and the Fish, died in Berkeley, California. His loss of life from issues of Parkinson’s illness was reported by Kathy McDonald, his spouse of 43 years, in an announcement issued by his publicist.
McDonald was a longtime presence within the Bay Space music scene, the place friends included the Grateful Useless, the Jefferson Airplane and his onetime girlfriend, Janis Joplin. He wrote or co-wrote a whole lot of songs, from psychedelic jams to soul-influenced rockers, and launched dozens of albums. However he was identified finest for a speaking blues he accomplished in lower than an hour in 1965 — the 12 months President Lyndon Johnson started sending floor forces to Vietnam — and recorded within the Berkeley residence of Arhoolie Information founder Chris Strachwitz.
Within the deadpan model of McDonald’s hero, Woody Guthrie, “I-Really feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a mock celebration of battle and early, mindless loss of life, with a refrain concertgoers and others would study by coronary heart:
And its 1, 2, 3 what are we combating for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a rattling, Subsequent cease is Vietnam, And its 5, 6, 7 open up the pearly gates, Nicely there ain’t no time to marvel why, WHOOPEE we’re all gonna die
On the time he wrote “I-Really feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag,” McDonald was co-leader of the newly shaped Nation Joe and the Fish and he added a particular “F-I-S-H” chant earlier than the tune: “Give me an F, give me an I, give me an S, give me an H.” By the point his group appeared at Woodstock in 1969, the Fish had been on the verge of breaking apart, the mantra was a distinct four-letter phrase starting in “F” and McDowell was performing earlier than a whole lot of hundreds. Many would stand and sing alongside, a second captured within the Woodstock documentary launched the next 12 months. (For the movie, the tune’s lyrics appeared as subtitles, a bouncing ball on high).
“Some individuals alluded to peace and stuff (at Woodstock), however I used to be speaking about Vietnam,” McDonald advised The Related Press in 2019. He referred to as the opening chant “an expression of our anger and frustration over the Vietnam Struggle, which was killing us, actually killing us.”
The tune helped make him well-known, however introduced authorized {and professional} penalties. In 1968, Ed Sullivan canceled a deliberate look by Nation Joe and the Fish on his selection present when he realized of the brand new opening cheer. Quickly after Woodstock, McDonald was arrested and fined for utilizing the cheer at a present in Worcester, Massachusetts, an ordeal which helped hasten the band’s demise.
McDonald even carried out the tune in court docket. His friendships with such political radicals as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin led to his being referred to as in as a witness within the “Chicago Eight (or Seven)” trial towards organizers of anti-war protests on the 1968 Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. On the stand, he defined how he had met with Hoffman and others and advised them about “I-Really feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.” When he started performing it, the decide interrupted and advised him “No singing is permitted within the courtroom.”
McDonald recited the phrases as a substitute.
In 2001, the daughter of the late jazz musician Edward “Child” Ory sued McDonald, alleging that his tune’s melody carefully resembled Ory’s Nineteen Twenties jazz instrumental “Muskrat Blues.” A U.S. district decide in California dominated in McDonald’s favor, citing partly the “unreasonable” delay between the tune’s launch and the swimsuit being filed.
A person of the ’60s
McDonald continued touring and recording for many years after Woodstock, however remained outlined by the late Sixties, a time interval he overtly longed for within the late Nineteen Seventies rocker “Carry Again the Sixties, Man.” His albums included “Nation,” “Carry On,” “Time Flies By” and “50,” and he would proceed writing protest songs, notably the 1982 launch “Save the Whales.”
Though outlined by his anti-war activism, McDonald would acknowledge conflicted emotions about Vietnam. He had served within the Navy, in Japan, within the late Fifties, and located himself figuring out with each the protesters and people serving abroad. Within the Nineties, he helped arrange the development of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Berkeley, formally unveiled in 1995.
“Many remembered the ugly confrontations that had occurred throughout the battle years within the metropolis,” McDonald later wrote of the ceremony. “But the ambiance proved to be one in all reconciliation, not confrontation.”
McDonald was married 4 occasions, most not too long ago to Kathy McDonald, and had 5 youngsters and 4 grandchildren. He was concerned on and off with Joplin over the second half of the Sixties, two younger hippies whose careers and temperaments drove them aside. When McDonald advised her he thought they need to break up, she requested him to write down a tune, which grew to become the ballad “Janis”:
Regardless that I do know that you just and I
May by no means discover the sort of love we wished
Collectively, alone, I discover myself
Lacking you and I
You and I
___
Raised on politics, and music
Nation Joe McDonald didn’t come from the “nation.” He was born on Jan. 1, 1942 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in El Monte, California. He was the son of onetime Communists who named him for Josef Stalin and in any other case inspired him to like music and determine with the working class. He was nonetheless in his teenagers when he started writing songs, taking part in trombone effectively sufficient to guide his highschool marching band and educating himself folks, nation and blues songs on guitar.
After coming back from the Navy, within the early Sixties, he attended Los Angeles State School, however quickly moved to Berkeley and have become immersed in folks music and political activism. He based an underground journal, Rag Child, for which “I-Really feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was written to assist promote, and helped begin such native teams because the Immediate Motion Jug Band and the Berkeley String Quartet.
In 1965, he shaped Nation Joe and the Fish with fellow singer-guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton, later including Bruce Barthol on bass, organ participant David Bennett Cohen and Gary “Hen” Hirsh on drums. The identify was recommended by journal writer Eugene “ED” Denson, who cited a quote from Mao Zedong that revolutionaries are “the fish who swim within the sea of the individuals.” McDonald was dubbed “Nation Joe” as a result of Denson had heard that Stalin was often known as “Nation Joe” throughout World Struggle II.
Just like the Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and different bands, the Fish developed from folks to folk-rock to acid rock. “Electrical Music for the Thoughts and Physique,” their debut album, was launched in Might 1967 and featured a minor hit, “Not So Candy Martha Lorraine,” together with quite a few lengthy jams. A month after the album got here out, they appeared on the Monterey Pop Competition, the primary main rock gathering and a spotlight of the so-called Summer season of Love.
“I feel the ‘Summer season of Love’ factor was manufactured by the media or one thing, as a result of I don’t keep in mind us pondering, ‘Wow, that is the “Summer season of Love,′ ” he advised aquariandrunkard.com in 2018. “(However) I used to be simply thrilled to be part of this new counterculture and new tribe as a result of I had by no means actually felt snug within the different tribes that I used to be part of rising up and within the Navy. My mother and father had been truly Jewish Communists. I by no means felt part of it, however I used to be actually thrilled and glad to be a hippie.”
Hillel Italie, The Related Press