Taking the stage at a community center in the small Northern
California town of Bolinas, a group of four musicians quickly showed
themselves to be returning as a vibrant creative force centered very
much in the present.
Not that the music of Country Joe and the Fish ever really
disappeared. Since the release of the band’s first two albums in
1967 -- “Electric Music for the Mind and Body” along with
“I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die” -- many of its songs have meandered
through the memories and semi-consciousness of millions of Americans
who came of age a third of a century ago.
Now reconstituted with four of the legendary group’s original
five members, the new Country Joe Band has just begun to tour. When I
saw them perform, midway through April, the music was as tightly
effusive as ever, with poetic lyrics mostly brought to bear on two
perennials: love and death.
Their new song “Cakewalk to Baghdad” is in sync with Country Joe
McDonald’s compositions that stretch back to the escalating years of
the Vietnam War. With the post-“victory” occupation of Iraq in its