Criterion Collection - Online Cinematheque

Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe McDonald—Lead vocals, guitar
Bruce Barthol—Bass, guitar
Barry Melton—Lead guitar
David Cohen—Keyboards
Gary “Chicken” Hirsh—Drums, percussion

Easily the most “political” act at the Festival, Country Joe and the Fish came out of the San Francisco folk-rock underground of the mid-1960s. Country Joe McDonald had first hooked up musically with Barry Melton and Bruce Barthol in 1965, as part of the Instant Action Jug Band, out of which they formed a loosely knit outfit referred to as Country Joe and the Fish, who cut a series of extended-play singles—essentially “talking issues” of McDonald’s own left-wing magazine Rag Baby—that were released locally in San Francisco in 1965. McDonald and Melton decided to put a permanent group together, using the same name, and the resulting quartet played around the San Francisco area for a couple of years making a name for themselves. The first Country Joe and the Fish album, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, was a classic amalgam of drug songs, social commentary, and political satire, and one of the enduring artifacts of the early psychedelic era. The group’s performance at the Monterey Pop Festival brought them their first offers of gigs on the East Coast, and when they played New York later that year, they brought their signature light-show with them.

The group’s second LP, I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die, released in 1967, contains what became their most famous song, the “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag”—the most savage musical comment ever heard by most people about the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson—couched in humorous terms which made it doubly subversive. Though it wasn’t released as a single, the song was played on AM radio in New York and was widely circulated among high school and college students for much of the late ‘60s, which culminated with its performance—in what amounted to a mass sing along of a half a million people—at Woodstock in 1969. The Together album, from 1968, marked the peak of the group’s success but it was around that time that the line-up began breaking down, so that by the time of the Woodstock appearance, McDonald and Melton were the only two permanent members, and McDonald opted out soon after for a solo career.

Country Joe McDonald—Lead Vocals, guitar
(1942 - )

Along with Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan, Country Joe McDonald was one of the most radical voices in popular music of the 1960s. Unlike Ochs and Dylan, who came by their political sensibilities in their teens, McDonald was born into a radical household, both his parents being unrepentant leftists. While living in San Francisco, he crossed paths with guitarist Barry Melton as a member of the Instant Action Jug Band. McDonald recorded some early solo sides, and put together a couple of satirical political songs, including an early version of the “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag,” to support his own leftist magazine Rag Baby. The two were pleased with the results and put together Country Joe and the Fish as an actual band. McDonald’s voice and writing dominated the first two albums, but by the third LP in 1968, the group had become much more of a cooperative effort. Despite the shared center stage, McDonald remained the “star” of the group, particularly as the “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” caught on as an anti-war anthem.

The “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” was never released as a single; radio stations whose deejays had the freedom and desire to do so simply ran it off the year-old album, but mostly the song spread by word-of-mouth, from campus to campus with help from college radio stations. McDonald’s apotheosis as a pop-culture figure took place at Woodstock in the summer of 1969, when he led half-a-million people in a sing-along version of “Fixin’ to Die.” By then, Country Joe and the Fish was mostly McDonald and Melton with whatever musicians they’d brought in, and McDonald was gone from the group by 1970. He has since recorded numerous solo albums, of country, blues, jug band, and other forms of folk-related music, and reuniting with Melton occasionally to reform the group.

Bruce Barthol—Bass, harmonica, sound effects, vocals
(1949 - )

Berkeley, California-born Bruce Barthol was an original member of Country Joe and the Fish. He subsequently recorded and performed with Rosalie Sorrels and played on Country Joe McDonald’s 1976 album Paradise With an Ocean View. He was also the producer on ex-Blues Project guitarist Danny Kalb’s 1995 album Livin’ With the Blues, and his songs appeared on the Saloon Years album by the Barry “The Fish” Melton Band.

Barry Melton—Lead guitar
(1949 - )

Country Joe and the Fish guitarist and co-founder Barry Melton first met Country Joe McDonald as a member of the Instant Action Jug Band. The two worked together informally on some of McDonald’s recordings in support of his own political journal, and decided to form a proper band. Melton’s lead playing was as essential a part of the group’s three classic albums as McDonald’s voice, his searing psychedelic guitar sound highlighted throughout the first album’s numbers. The two subsequently became the core of the surviving band into the late 1960s, Melton holding it together when McDonald withdrew from full-time work with the group to get married. It was also Melton who was responsible for bringing Big Brother and the Holding Company cast-offs Peter Albin and David Getz into the line-up when Janis Joplin split with that band in late 1968. Melton has continued to work in music, fronting various musical ensembles including the Barry “The Fish” Melton Band, but has also been a practicing attorney for the past two decades.

David Cohen—Keyboards

A multi-threat instrumentalist who has composed and played for every kind of musical venue from rock festivals to Broadway, David Bennett Cohen had the lengthiest formal musical training of any member of Country Joe and the Fish, having studied classical piano since the age of seven, and was a self-taught guitarist by the time he was ten. It wasn’t until he arrived in San Francisco in 1965 and started working with Barry Melton in what eventually became Country and the Fish, that he emerged as a musician of note. Cohen was one of the first rock musicians to make a serious mark with electric keyboards, composing music that exploited the unique characteristics of electric pianos and organs—his “Section 43,” featured in Country Joe and the Fish sets, is regarded by many as one of the earliest examples of psychedelic music in American rock. In the years since, he also played with such artists as The Blues Project, Jimi Hendrix, Tim Hardin, Mick Taylor, Michael Bloomfield, Johnny Winter, Bob Weir, and Huey Lewis, before he emerged as a solo artist. He has also been part of the touring production of the Broadway musical Rent.

Gary “Chicken” Hirsh—Drums, percussion

Gary Hirsh, usually referred to as Chicken Hirsh, Country Joe and the Fish’s second drummer, succeeded John Francis Gunning in late 1966. In addition to playing percussion with the group through 1968, Hirsh was responsible for energizing the public’s enthusiasm for the “Fish Cheer,” from the “I Feel Like In Fixin’ to Die Rag.” It had always opened with “Gimme an ‘F,’ gimme and ‘I,’ gimme an ‘S’ but at a New York concert in 1968, Hirsh changed it to “Gimme an ‘F,’ gimme a ‘U,’ gimme a ‘C,’ gimme a ‘K,’ with the appropriate change in what it spelled, and audiences delighted in the new cheer. From there it spread like wildfire and also resulted in the tamer original recording—which had never been issued as a single—getting played on the radio.

The Steve Miller Blues Band

Steve Miller—Lead vocals, guitar
James “Curley” Cooke—Guitars, vocals
Lonnie Turner—Bass, vocals
Tim Davis—Drums, percussion
Jim Peterman—Organ, vocals

The Steve Miller Blues Band, appearing at Monterey more than six months before the release of their debut album, were best known at the time for their free concerts in the San Francisco Bay area, and for having backed Chuck Berry in his performance at the Fillmore West. The group’s personnel situation became rather fluid around the time of the Monterey Pop Festival, with Miller’s longtime friend Boz Scaggs joining near the time they were signed to Capitol Records. Like their San Francisco compatriots The Grateful Dead, The Steve Miller Blues Band managed to achieve success without nudging the singles charts for years, purely on the strength of their albums and the band’s live performances. Miller got through a near-fatal car accident that broke his neck and left him incapacitated during 1972 and the beginning of 1973, and, in the process of convalescing, reinvented his persona and musicianship—he re-emerged in 1973 as a bluesy pop-rock singer guitarist. The album, Fly Like an Eagle, sold four million copies and yielded a year’s worth of radio staples, including the number one hit “Rock’n Me.” Miller spent the late 1970s as one of the most ubiquitous musical presences on AM radio and a top concert attraction. He took time away from music in 1978, returned with the Circle of Love album in 1981, and followed it up less than a year later with Abracadabra, which yielded not only huge sales but a staggeringly successful tour.

Steve Miller—Lead vocals, guitar, harmonica
(1943 - )

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Steve Miller was the son of a pathologist who had friends that included Charles Mingus and Les Paul. Paul taught Miller some guitar and even let him sit in when he recorded. Miller formed his first band when he was twelve years old, in tandem with a friend named Boz Scaggs. They passed through a pair of bands together at the University of Wisconsin, and then Miller headed for Chicago, where he became part of that city’s blues scene, playing alongside such figures as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Buddy Guy. He also played with Barry Goldberg, later of The Electric Flag, and formed the Goldberg-Miller Blues Band, which led to the two working together as back-up musicians (behind The Four Tops and The Supremes). In 1966, Miller moved to San Francisco, where he formed The Steve Miller Blues Band, with his fellow University of Wisconsin classmates James “Curly” Cooke on guitar and Tim Davis on drums, while Lonnie Turner played bass. Miller went on to enjoy two careers, first leading his group in their San Francisco period as a blues-rock outfit, and later as leader of a pop-rock outfit that ruled the AM airwaves from 1974 until the early 1980s and sold tens of millions of records.

Lonnie Turner—Bass, vocals
(1947 - )

Berkeley-born bassist Lonnie Turner is one of the longest surviving alumni of The Steve Miller Band, having joined in 1966 and lasted into the 1980s. He is also one of the busiest musicians to have passed through that line-up, playing bass with Eddie Money, Dave Mason, Albert King, and Tommy Tutone (among other acts) over the decades.

Tim Davis—Drums

Steve Miller Band co-founder Tim Davis played drums on the group’s first five albums, as well as contributing vocals. During the 1960s, he also contributed percussion on a pair of Jefferson Airplane albums, and in the 1970s, worked with fellow Miller alumnus Ben Sidran. In 1971, Davis released a solo album, Pipedream, that included contributions from James Curly Cooke and Grateful Dead alumna Donna Jean Godchaux.

Jim Peterman—Organ, vocals

Organist Jim Peterman was a relatively new addition to the line-up of the Steve Miller Band at the time of the Monterey performance. He lasted through their first two albums before being succeeded by Ben Sidran. He also played on two of Sidran’s solo albums.

James “Curley” Cooke—Guitar, vocals

Steve Miller’s original guitar stable-mate in his first incarnation of the Steve Miller Band, James Curly Cooke can be heard in the group’s Monterey appearance and on their album backing Chuck Berry. He was later a member of the Seattle band Double Cookin’ and returned to the Miller line-up on acoustic guitar on Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams. He has since become a music educator in the Pacific Northwest, focusing principally on the blues.



The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Paul Butterfield—Vocals, harmonica
Elvin Bishop—Lead guitar
Mark Naftalin—Keyboards
Jerome Arnold—Bass
Billy Davenport—Drums
Keith Johnson—Trumpet
Gene Dinwiddie—Sax
David Sanborn—Sax

The group, founded as a quartet in Chicago in 1964, took the music world by storm as the country’s premiere white blues band, issuing a pair of albums on Elektra Records that oozed virtuosity and flash. The band had lost its main sparkplug, guitarist Michael Bloomfield, earlier in 1967 when he decided to form The Electric Flag, who also performed at Monterey. The band held together for the concert, keeping the same core members and adding a pair of saxmen and a trumpet, and generally offering a more soul-drenched sound than they’d ever had before. The group went through numerous personnel changes over the next few years, losing guitarist Elvin Bishop and keyboard player Mark Naftalin later in 1968, before Butterfield retired the name and the band in 1970. They did play Woodstock, but by that time were a very different band from what one hears at the Monterey Festival.

Paul Butterfield—Vocals, harmonica
(1942 - 1987)

Paul Butterfield, born in Chicago, studied the flute with a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but his heart lay with the harmonica and blues guitar, and he found a kindred spirit in Nick Gravenites, a college classmate. The two played together as a duo, and Butterfield later hooked up with Elvin Bishop, a guitarist, at the University of Illinois. By 1963, they were playing together on the city’s South Side and had raided Howlin’ Wolf’s bassist, Jerome Arnold, and his drummer, Sam Lay. Thus was born The Paul Butterfield Blues Band—Michael Bloomfield signed on in 1965 and all of the pieces of the puzzle were together in one place. The band was signed to Elektra Records in 1965, and the sky seemed to be the limit.

Even their one-off performances seemed charmed—when Bob Dylan decided to play his new electric music at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, it was Butterfield and company who played back-up, thus entering the history books and making it onto several hundred thousand bootleg copies of the performance, and jump-starting the electric folk boom (of which they weren’t even fully a part, being a blues band). Butterfield held the group together through the defection of Bloomfield in early 1967, but by the end of the 1960s his own interests had begun to change, moving toward jazz. His biggest contribution to music late in the decade, as far as many blues fans were concerned, was his participation on the Fathers and Sons album, featuring Muddy Waters, which was one of the more successful efforts at mixing the older black Chicago bluesmen and their younger white admirers on the same recordings.

During the 1970s, Butterfield formed a new band called Better Days, worked on a few recordings, including the soundtrack of the movie Steelyard Blues, worked some more with Muddy Waters, and played at the concert (and in the film) The Last Waltz. By the 1980s, however, he was in the throes of both chronic alcoholism and an addiction to heroin. He died of an overdose in 1987.

Elvin Bishop—Lead guitar
(1942 - )

Coming from a poor white farm family that moved from California to Iowa to Oklahoma, Elvin Bishop was entranced by blues music, which he heard over the radio. It took him until age seventeen and a move to Chicago—where he had a scholarship to the University of Illinois—to find out more, and then he plunged in headfirst, diving into the South Side’s blues clubs and culture and hooking up with Paul Butterfield.

For two years, in tandem with Michael Bloomfield, he handled the guitar chores in the band and later took over the lead spot when Bloomfield left. His own nickname, “Pigboy Crabshaw,” became the title of their third album. By the end of the 1960s, he’d embarked on a solo career that included recordings with B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix, and serious chart success in the 1970s with the songs “Travelin’ Shoes” and “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.” He continued to record with great success on the Alligator label in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Mark Naftalin—Keyboards
(1944 - )

Minneapolis-born Mark Naftalin started playing piano in public at dances at the University of Chicago. By 1964, he was studying at the Mannes College of Music in New York, and was employed as a session pianist by Paul Butterfield on what would be the latter’s first official recording. Before the recordings were finished, Naftalin was in the band where, over the next four years, he would become the most visible white blues keyboard player in America.

After leaving Butterfield’s group in 1968, he formed his own band, and during the 1970s performed and recorded with various other players (including Michael Bloomfield) and became a producer. In addition to organizing the Marin County Blues Festival and running it for the past 21 years, Naftalin has recorded various younger blues artists and has also been responsible for issuing various archival live recordings of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band from the mid-1960s.

Jerome Arnold—Bass
(1936 - )

Jerome Arnold was The Butterfield Blues Band’s link with the authentic Chicago blues sound that inspired them. Along with drummer Sam Lay, he was spirited out of Howlin' Wolf's band to play with Butterfield and company. He had also played with Billy Boy Arnold and has played with numerous other artists through the decades since the 1950s.

Billy Davenport—Drums
(1933 - )

Chicago-born Billy Davenport was already a 15-year veteran of the jazz and blues worlds when he joined The Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965, having played with Junior Wells, Tampa Red, and Sonny Stitt. He came aboard to replace the group’s original drummer, Sam Lay, who was in bad health, and his work allowed the group to expand its range and reach, which became clear on the album East-West (1966). He left the band in 1968 due to health problems, but was back in the 1970s working with such figures as blues legend Willie Dixon. In more recent years, he has moved back to his jazz roots.

Keith Johnson—Trumpet

Keith Johnson remained with the group across three albums, through 1969, and was later a member of Elephant’s Memory, the New York-based band that backed John Lennon and Yoko Ono on stage and on record in 1972. He has also played with Etta James and Van Morrison.

“Brother” Gene Dinwiddie— Sax
(1936 - )

Another new addition to the band for 1967, Louisville-born Gene Dinwiddie stayed with Butterfield until 1970, and went on to play with Gregg Allman, B.B. King, Etta James, Jackie Lomax, Todd Rundgren, and Melissa Manchester.

David Sanborn—Sax
(1945 - )

Renowned sax-man David Sanborn is an unexpected name to turn up on the roster of the Butterfield Blues Band, but there he was in 1967, at age 21. He stayed with the Butterfield band through Woodstock, and still worked with Butterfield in the 1970s, but by that time he was on his way to a superstar career—leading his own band and playing/recording with David Bowie, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Brecker Brothers, James Brown, Judy Collins, Tommy Bolin, and George Benson, among numerous others.



The Electric Flag

Mike Bloomfield—Guitar, backing vocals
Barry Goldberg—Keyboards
Nick Gravenites—Lead vocals
Harvey Brooks—Bass
Buddy Miles—Drums, backing vocals
Peter Strazza—Tenor sax
Herbie Rich—Alto sax
Marcus Doubleday—Trumpet

The Electric Flag was the brainchild of guitarist Michael Bloomfield, who had made his name in 1965-66 as a member of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band as well as playing on some of Bob Dylan’s more notable records. After quitting Butterfield’s group, he’d decided to continue in the same direction with a new band—he recruited keyboard player Barry Goldberg, singer Nick Gravenites, Harvey Brooks on bass, and Buddy Miles on drums. As The Electric Flag was to embrace jazz as well as rock and blues, a horn section was a necessity—sax man Peter Strazza was brought in by Goldberg, trumpet player Marcus Doubleday, and saxophonist Herbie Rich filled out the line-up during the summer of 1967. Even before the Electric Flag had played in public, they got a recording gig, playing on the soundtrack of The Trip (1967). Their official debut album would soon follow, but first they had to play their inaugural gig, in front of 50,000 people at the Monterey Pop Festival.

Most of what the group played at Monterey was material from their embryonic debut album. Critics embraced the album as a prime example of the new, hybrid forms of rock music that were starting to turn up, freely mixing Chicago blues, jazz, R&B, and electric rock sounds. Before the group could build any momentum off of the album and the reviews, however, the band began falling apart—with so many different musical influences, striking a balance of personalities and interests was essential, and that had been lost in the year they’d spent together. Goldberg exited first, followed soon after by Mike Bloomfield himself. The remaining group members continued to work together, with Hoshal Wright replacing Bloomfield. By 1969 The Electric Flag was history, though they were briefly resurrected by Bloomfield, Goldberg, and Gravenites in 1974, for a single album and a follow-up tour.

Mike Bloomfield—Guitar, vocals
(1943 - 1981)

Born in the Windy City at just about the time that transplanted Delta blues had started to grow into something bigger, bolder, and louder than its origins, Michael Bloomfield was a natural, as a guitarist and a blues enthusiast. By 1965, as a member of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, he was arguably the best known white blues guitarist in America. By 1966, with the release of the band’s East-West album, he was ripping the envelope around electric blues, incorporating raga-like structures and sounds into his playing. And by 1967, Bloomfield was thought of in the same breath with the likes of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton—The Electric Flag came out of Monterey on a big head of steam, and ten months later their debut album, A Long Time Comin’, hit the streets to critical raves and positive public response. By that time, however, another side of Bloomfield’s personality had manifested itself, a manic component that encompassed insomnia and substance abuse problems that would plague him for the remainder of his life—he went on to record two top-selling albums with Al Kooper, Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, and saw great critical success for his work during the 1970s, but never achieved the broader popular recognition that should have followed in its wake

Barry Goldberg—Keyboards, vocals
(1941 - )

Born in Chicago in 1941, Barry Goldberg, like Michael Bloomfield, was drawn toward the blues at an early age. A formidable keyboard player—with a preference for the organ—he was wangling his way into performances with Muddy Waters and other Windy City legends from the late 1950s onward. He was also part of the band that backed Bob Dylan when he introduced amplified folk music to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and subsequently did session work for Mitch Ryder, played with Jimi Hendrix at the Café Au Go Go, was a member of Charlie Musselwhite’s first band, and teamed up with guitarist Steve Miller to cut an album. In 1966, he recorded an album as leader of the Barry Goldberg Blues Band. Goldberg was the first member of The Electric Flag to jump ship, soon after the release of the groups debut album—he subsequently formed a group called The Barry Goldberg Reunion with guitarist Harvey Mandel and drummer “Fast” Eddie Hoh. In the decades since, he’s branched out to write soundtrack material for movies and television such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Adventures in Babysitting, and Murphy Brown.

Nick Gravenites—Lead vocals
1938 - )

The Electric Flag’s lead singer was born in Chicago in 1938. As a student at the University of Chicago in the late 1950s, he took up the guitar and joined the burgeoning community of folk music enthusiasts, eventually gravitating toward the blues. He crossed paths with Paul Butterfield during this period, and they were soon playing acoustic blues at coffee houses; Gravenites was also part of the orbit of Michael Bloomfield and Charlie Musselwhite, and spent time playing with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, among other Chicago blues giants. After his stay in the short-lived Electric Flag, Gravenites enjoyed far more prominence than ever before, and cut his first solo album in 1969. He briefly joined the reactivated, post-Janis Joplin Big Brother and the Holding Company, and has played with various bands during the 30 years since.

Harvey Brooks—Bass
(1944 - )

New York-born bassist Harvey Brooks has probably enjoyed the widest ranging career of any of The Electric Flag alumni. In addition to Bob Dylan and Al Kooper, Brooks has played and recorded with such artists as Eric Andersen, Jim and Jean, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Seals and Crofts, John Sebastian, Loudon Wainwright III, John Cale, and rockabilly legend Paul Burlison.

Buddy Miles—Drums
(1946 - )

Previously a drummer for Wilson Pickett, Buddy Miles was in demand from any number of players when Michael Bloomfield asked him to join the Flag. He lasted longer than Bloomfield in the group and, coming off its break-up, hooked up with Jimi Hendrix for a legendary musical liaison—the Band of Gypsies—that left behind a live album. In the years since, Miles has played with numerous Chicago blues legends including Muddy Waters, and was also involved with The California Raisins.


Continued in Monterey Pop Artist Bios - part three

Categories: Film Essays