COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH ORIGINAL '70 LP

COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH C J FISH LPCategory / Style / Moods: Rock * * Psychedelic * Folk-Rock Moods * Confrontational * Irreverent * Reflective * Playful * Druggy * Organic * Laid-Back/ Mellow * Trippy * Snide17.77 / 2007-12-18 S asocc1970 VANGUARD US LPTITLE: C J FISHARTIST: COUNTRY JOE & THE FISHCONDITIONCOVER: VG+VINYL: VG+Click here for info on grading and abbreviationsTOUGH TO FIND ORIGINAL PRESSClick the pix for a better view TRACKS: Disc: 11.Sing, Sing, SingMelton 3:052.She's a BirdMcDonald 4:383.MaraMcDonald 3:014.Hang OnMcDonald 4:125.The Baby SongMcDonald 2:556.Hey BobbyMcDonald 2:117.Silver and GoldMcDonald 2:478.Rockin' Round the WorldMcDonald 4:549.The Love MachineMelton 5:4810.The Return of Sweet LorraineMcDonald 3:5011.Hand of ManMcDonald 2:50Review by Brandon Buden Country Joe and the Fish went through a personnel change for their fifth album, CJ Fish, adding Greg Dewey, Doug Metzner, and Mark Kapner in place of David Cohen and "Chicken" Hirsh. They retained, however, their primary composers Barry Melton and Country Joe MacDonald, keeping the sound and style of the original band. CJ Fish is not as strong as their other albums, but it does have a few highlights. The content is typical Country Joe and the Fish: more love, less war, and the tunes are only a little fresher than the ideas. On their previous release Here We Are Again, they experimented with various styles. On CJ Fish, they tried to recapture the sound of their previous success, but they "went back to the well" only to find there wasn't much there. Most of the lyrics are thoughtful and bright; many are in rhyme as many of that time were. The overall timbre is interesting, being both joyful and sobering at the same time. Some bright spots in the material are "Hey Bobby," "She's a Bird," and "Hang On," which are delightfully Country Joe. Overall it's not a bad album and no Country Joe and the Fish collection is complete without it. And soon, "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" took on a life of its own. The band had first recorded it before they were on Vanguard, as a folk number, and the version on the Vanguard album showed the most elaborate production yet. In the summer of 1968, the band was appearing in New York City at the Shaefer Summer Music Festival, sponsored by the beer company, at the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park. By that time, the mood of the country had darkened considerably from 1967 -- the Democrats were split between pro- and antiwar factions, while the Republicans were capitalizing on the forces of reaction among white voters in the South, in the first national election since the passage of the landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation of the mid-'60s. And everybody seemed to either hate -- or were just plain suspicious of -- the motives of college students of the activist variety, who were a big chunk of Country Joe & the Fish's audience. Amid a lot of head-shaking and hand-wringing, many over-forties, even those with sons who could be drafted, seemed to wish that the majority of those "kids" would just act like willing cannon fodder and shut up. And the troop commitments stayed in the six-figure range, while three- and four-star generals whose lives and careers were inextricably tied to the military set goals and strategies that politicians endorsed and accepted and continued to bankroll in their budgets. In a moment that could be filed under "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" (and it was), at that particular Shaefer concert, the group was planning on doing "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" when drummer Chicken Hirsh suggested that the opening, high school-style cheer ("Gimme an 'F,' gimme an 'I'") be changed to something a lot more...expressive. The cheer became an expletive, the crowd in those relatively innocent but darkening times devoured it, and the new cheer stuck -- the song, as originally recorded, got onto AM radio once again in its wake, and suddenly 12- and 13-year-olds (like this writer at the time) from places like Whitestone, Queens (Archie Bunker territory in New York City), 3,500 miles from Berkeley, who'd never even heard of the venues in Manhattan where the band had played, knew who Country Joe & the Fish were. The word spread as though by jungle telegraph, and the LP and the song were passed around like some secret code This exquisite piece of retro music history is a vinyl sound recording (not a CD). Please visit the A Sound Deal store for similar items and information on grading and shipping. Add me to your favorites for red hot sales bulletins and sneak previews of upcoming products. Combine Items to Save $$$! Click here to check the store for more!©A Sound Deal