Country Joe McDonald - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1976 | Albums That Should Exist

 

Country Joe McDonald - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1976

Paul says: I left for a two-week vacation about two weeks ago. (I'm writing this in late March 2026.) Around the time I left, I heard that singer-songwriter Country Joe McDonald had died. Specifically, he died on March 7, 2026, at the age of 84, of complications from Parkinson's Disease. 

To be honest, I can't say I'm that familiar with his discography. But since he died, I wanted to see if there were any worthy albums I could post of his music. To my surprise, I found not one, not two, but three albums of unreleased material he performed for the BBC, all of it from the early 1970s. Here's the first one. It consists of BBC studio sessions. The other two I'll be posting feature BBC concerts.

The first seven tracks come from an appearance on John Peel's radio show, "Top Gear," in 1970. Tracks 8 and 9 are from the "One in Ten" radio show "One in Ten" in 1971. The rest of the songs are from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" TV show. Tracks 10 through 14 are from a 1972 episode. Tracks 15 through 17 are from a 1974 episode. The rest, tracks 16 through 21, are from a 1976 episode. Most of the songs were performed in solo acoustic mode.

By the way, there was one more song, "TV Blues," played on the 1974 episode which I couldn't find. If anyone has it (or other BBC sessions from him), I'll add it in. 

All the music here is unreleased. The sound quality is generally excellent, especially since there was no audience noise. 

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 Hold On, It's Coming 
02 Balancing on the Edge of Time 
03 talk 
04 It's So Nice to Have Love 
05 Maria 
06 talk 
07 Tell Me Where You're Bound 
08 talk 
09 Jean Desprez
10 Tricky Dick 
11 talk 
12 Trapped Inside a Fantasy 
13 talk
14 Coulene Anne 
15 Holy Roller
16 talk 
17 Living in the Country
18 Save the Whales
19 talk 
20 Our Wedding Day 
21 Breakfast for Two 

(all tracks Country Joe McDonald) 

Like Paul I wasn’t familiar with this set and it is a welcome addition to the earlier posts on Joe (follow the links below)

more Tributes to Joe: ‘Country’ Joe McDonald, ’60s rock star, proud protest counterculture icon, dies at 84

from other sources mourning the passing of a legend of the counter-culture so called

"Country" Joe McDonald, a prominent hippie rock star from the 1960s, whose song "I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag" served as a four-lettered condemnation of the Vietnam War, became an anthem for demonstrators and a significant feature of the Woodstock music festival, passed away on Sunday. He was 84.

McDonald, who was a member of the band Country Joe and the Fish, died in Berkeley, California. His death, attributed to complications from Parkinson’s disease, was confirmed by his wife of 43 years, Kathy McDonald, in a statement released by his publicist.

McDonald was a longstanding figure in the Bay Area music scene, where he shared the stage with notable peers such as the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, and his former girlfriend, Janis Joplin. He composed or co-composed hundreds of songs, ranging from psychedelic jams to soul-influenced rock tracks, and produced numerous albums. However, he is most famously recognized for a talking blues he finished in under an hour in 1965 – the same year President Lyndon Johnson began deploying ground troops to Vietnam – which was recorded in the Berkeley home of Chris Strachwitz, the founder of Arhoolie Records.

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

From Gary Lucas!

Good Guys/Bad Guys Cheer/The Streets Of Your Town

Country Joe and the Fish - Topic

https://www.tumblr.com/1264doghouse

So sad to hear of the passing of Country Joe MacDonald . . . . .

 Joe MacDonald of Country Joe and The Fish stalwart of the Woodstock festival and generation to follow has died aged 84

An early almost childhood hero renowned for the Fish Cheer from Fixin’ To Die Rag at Woodstock ‘69, my old pal and sterling drummer par excellence, Johnny Marter I recall tripping the lights with me across the fields and meadows where we grew up bashing guitars and bellowing the Cheer at the tops of our lungs!

He was more than that and a sensitive songwriter to boot from the first two Fish albums and then Quiet Days in Clichy soundtrack to his solo efforts he meant a lot to me

Let your freak flag fly Joe!

Country Joe & the Fish - VietNam Song - Live Woodstock 1969

Country Joe & the Fish - Rock and Soul Music - Live Woodstock 1969

Country Joe & the Fish - Colours for Susan - Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die

(yes bought when it came out . . . . )

Country Joe & the Fish - Sad and Lonely Times - Music For The Mind & Body

-------------------

Joe MacDonald  - Quiet Days in Clichy! 😉

Song of the Day | COUNTRY JOE MACDONALD - ALL MY LOVE IN VAIN

 All My Love in Vain - Country Joe MacDonald

is this post or Pre FISH!?

Never seen this clip before or Joe with such long hair but it is unmistakably him.

my guess is trying to make it more commercially ( aTV slot!? no Fish Cheer here!) this would be post-Fish

Country Joe McDonald & The Bevis Frond: Eat Flowers & Kiss Babies 1999 - Urbanaspirines

Country Joe MacDonald and The Bevis Frond - Eat Flowers and Kiss Babies - Urbanaspirines

Now this is a rarity and something of a mystery collaboration and trust Kostas to have dug up a superb download. Now whilst he lists potted blogs of both Country Joe and The Bevis Frond there seems to be scant information as to how on earth a Brit psychedelic band came to work with one of the early sixties masters of alternative counter culture hippy rock classics. Never mind it being recorded in Scotland!? Herewith a recreation of the earliest Fish classics and Joe is on fine form backed more than adequately by the boys from the Frond! Released in 1999 on the Frond’s own label . . . . . 

Now long OUT OF PRINT!

BRILLIANT!

drop over and avail yourself of a classic as rare as rocking horse poo!

Can you dig it?

I think you can!!!

Country Joe McDonald "Paris Session" 1973 - TWILIGHTZONE

 More COUNTRY JOE

       We looked at a Joe McDonald's straight country peach t'other day "Tonight I'm Singing Just For You" which may have put a lot of folks off for reasons best known to someone else because contract filler or not it is actually a fine effort but post Fish we find a Joe battered and bruised somewhat by the political counterculture pressures and we forgive him his so called 'straight' album which actually is honestly worth a play but here's another treat that is really well worth trying. Again from TWILIGHTZONE and with notes that bear another reading but go over there and download this great little forgotten gem. He can really write a song and really sing too! But what do I know "I'm Tired" . . . . . . . . to have assembled such a fine band around him it is a shame he didn't achieve more success with them. 

Joe McDonald Paris Session 1973 - Twilightzone

TWILIGHTZONE says:

...Beginning in April 1971, McDonald became active in the growing antiwar movement and appeared at demonstrations in San Francisco and Washington, D.C...

...Together with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, McDonald appeared during an FTA (Free the Army) tour of Vietnam that featured skits by former Second City members Ann and Roger Bowen. Although he became disenchanted with Fonda's political views* and left the show, the experience earned McDonald a spot on President Nixon's enemies list. Returning to the United States, McDonald recorded an EP with the San Francisco-based band Grootna. A solo performance at the Bottom Line was released as a live album, Incredible Live!, in 1972. During 1972 and 1973, McDonald performed with the All-Star Band, a group mainly comprising members of the Fish and Big Brother & the Holding Company. The band accompanied McDonald on his 1973 album, Paris Sessions.

This is really worth checking out . . . . . how to write songs that are pertinent to the then current political climate and can cook along with the best! Great band too with Pete Albin on bass, Ann Rizzo on Steel Guitar & vocals, Dorothy Moscowitz on piano and vocals, Tucki Bailey on sax, John Vierra on Moog, David Getz on drums, Phil Marsh on guitars, John Rewind on wah wah guitar !

* might need to research his falling out as politically left of field radices both should have been singing from the same sheet!

Notes here go some way further to explain the clash 

concord.com - country joe

Country Joe McDonald "Tonight I'm Singing Just For You" 1970 - TWILIGHTZONE

 

Country Joe McDonald - Tonight I'm Singing Just For You - TWILIGHTZONE

At the time of this release, a lot of Country Joe's audience had the nerve to act surprised and put off when he released an "actual country" record......Fifty plus years on the 21st century listener need not heed those cultural limits of a bygone era. This is a fine record and dovetails perfectly well with its predecessor solo LP, Thinking of Woody Guthrie. - tkdcoach

Well said tkdcoach as this is lovely and surely we can all have a straight day and attempt some American Songbook classics? I have been a life long Country Joe fan from his work with his Fish and to an Art college movie soundtrack we saw that blew me away Quiet Days In Clichy (check it out, its Filth!) from my Henry Miller period (as a lusty student I read everything I could find!)

Quiet Days In Clichy (1970 film) wiki

Country Joe McDonald ::War War War - Zero G Sounds

 

Country Joe McDonald - War War War (1971)

Political and ecological issues were set to musical accompaniment by Country Joe McDonald, who co-founded and led the psychedelic folk-rock band Country Joe & the Fish, the leading left-wing band of the '60s. Since the group's breakup in 1971, McDonald has continued to musically espouse his political views through his original folk-like songs.

"War War War" is the third album by Country Joe McDonald. The lyrics for the songs on the album were based upon the poetry of Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958), who was sometimes referred to as "the Bard of the Yukon".

The album was released in October 1971 by Vanguard Records (VSD 15) and reissued in February 1995 by One Way Records (OW 30995). Recording took place in Vanguard Studios located in New York City.

Because the album has been out of print for many years, Country Joe McDonald released a live album with the same track listing in 2007 called "War War War Live".


Tracklist:
1. "Forward" 4:39
2. "The Call" 2:35
3. "Young Fellow, My Lad" 3:47
4. "The Man from Athabaska " 6:28
5. "The Munition Maker" 4:22
6. "The Twins" 1:53
7. "Jean Desprez" 9:48
8. "War Widow" 2:02
9. "The March of the Dead" 6:27


Country Joe McDonald - War War War (1971)

from Zero G Sounds

COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH - SECTION 43 - MONTEREY '67 - AQUARIUM DRUNKARD

 FISH IN THE AQUARIUM!

Start the day with some 

FISH for Breakfast!?

Thanks to Aquarium Drunkard!

Their version of the video didn't play so here t'is from elsewhere and hope its the same pice of film but the dedication is 

COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH - SECTION 43

Barry Melton on his SG

Country Joe and The Fish at Monterey

It’s something about that shriek—the way it piercingly cuts through the otherwise bird-chirping and cawing dewy morning tranquility of what’s on screen. What is on screen is D.A. Pennebaker’s footage of Country Joe & the Fish performing “Section 43” at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival in California. Although it’s one scene in the larger sequence of a concert film that features monumentally historic performances of Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin and so many more—a document that seems to wholly embody the ’60s counter-culture—these five-and-a-half-minutes feel like something, just, a little different.

I think they may have been on something . . . . . . 

 Now I LOVED the Fish and learned The F-I-S-H. Cheer by rote and played it segued into Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag with Johnny Marter (yes that Johnny Marter - drummer per excellence and drummer with various bands including Mr Big - no, the REAL one, the British one!) 'til out fingers bled! I loved the Fish and bought the first two albums and by the time I got to art school was following Country Joe's every move and enjoyed his soundtrack to Henry Miller's Quiet Days In Clichy (check it out - its FILTH!) So this is why I post this from the Aquarium this morning and it takes me right back. Section 43 wasn't my favourite piece but I wholeheartedly agree with the author of the article here by c depasquale

 

comes to us all . . . . . . Joe MacDonald

COUNTRY JOE!

Joseph Allen “Country Joe” McDonald - acoustic guitar, harmonica, kazoo, vocals

Crikey! Thus we are continuing the blasts from the past that dates me irrevocably, Jimi, The Doors and The Who on the Smothers Brothers show - crikey even the Faces dates from 71!!

Now a beauty from Big O this morning of an old hero, Country Joe McDonald of 'Country Joe and The Fish' live in Holland on his own. Why you can smell the heady atmosphere from here!

When I went to college in Leicester in the early seventies one of the first things I recall was  a showing of Henry Miller's classic book turned film 'Quiet Days in Clichy' and note that was an introduction to another hero, Miller then became an obsession for a while and I read all the major novels but the soundtrack from that film also stuck with me too. Country Joe and The Fish was introduced to me by my old pal Alan Bateman who had a passion for all things West Coast and I bought the first two albums when they came out over here and loved them. The Fish Cheer and Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag was one of the first things I learned to play by heart and I could probably sing the whole song right through even now (not difficult -ED!) but this quality recording from the era is a treat and if the joke side of Joe is too off putting for some try the 'Sad and Lonely Times' a favourite song here of Joe's and solo it is still a lovely heartfelt love song without equal IMHO.

Can you dig it mahn? I think you can . . . . . . . . . 

Country Joe solo - Rotterdam 1971

Gimme an 'F' . . . . . . 

Track 06. Sad And Lonely Times 4:35