Country Joe McDonald, whose performance of \u201cI-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag\u201d at Woodstock became one of the legendary highlights of the festival, has died at the age of 84.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s death Saturday in Berkeley, California, was confirmed in a post on social media. The post says he died from complications from Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcDonald was widely recognized as one of the defining voices of the 1960s counterculture movement,\u201d said an official obituary from the band Country Joe and the Fish. \u201cHis music blended folk, rock and political commentary, capturing the spirit of a generation deeply affected by social upheaval, civil rights struggles and the Vietnam War.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to his online biography, McDonald was born Joseph Allen McDonald in 1942 in Washington, D.C.. He grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, California. He was influenced musically by artists performing at El Monte Legion Stadium, including gospel, jazz, blues, rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and country.<\/p>\n
He served in the U.S. Navy for three years. In the early 1960s, he moved to Berkeley and focused on music. He also became politically active, protesting against the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n
He helped form Country Joe and the Fish in 1965, NPR reports. The group blended folk music and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, and was known for its political commentary.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s best-known song was \u201cI-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag\u201d and McDonald\u2019s performance of the song in 1969 at Woodstock became part of the festival\u2019s lore.<\/p>\n
The song had a large presence in pop culture and was used in movies such as \u201cHamburger Hill\u201d and \u201cMore American Graffiti.\u201d It also was used in the HBO series \u201cGeneration Kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe important thing about the \u2018Fixin\u2019 to Die Rag\u2019 was that it had a new point of view that did not blame soldiers for war,\u201d McDonald said of the song, according to Variety. \u201cIt just blamed the politicians and it blamed the manufacturers of weapons. It didn\u2019t blame the soldiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone who was in the military could sing the song and the attitude is, \u2018Whoopee, we\u2019re all going to die.\u2019 Most peace songs of the era blamed the soldiers for the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Country Joe and the Fish disbanded in 1971, but McDonald continued recording as a solo artist.<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit cleveland.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Country Joe McDonald, whose performance of \u201cI-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag\u201d at Woodstock became one of the legendary highlights of the festival, has died at the age of 84. McDonald\u2019s death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}