Country Joe McDonald, Woodstock singer, dies at 84

Country Joe McDonald, the protest singer whose anti-war anthem I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag became one of the defining songs of the Vietnam war era, has died aged 84.

McDonald died in Berkeley, California, from complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife Kathy McDonald confirmed in a statement issued through his publicist.

The musician became a defining voice of the 1960s counterculture movement and gained global recognition after performing at the 1969 Woodstock festival.

Born in Washington DC in 1942 and raised in El Monte, California, McDonald began writing songs as a teenager after teaching himself to play guitar.

He later became part of the San Francisco Bay Area’s psychedelic rock scene and fronted the band Country Joe and the Fish, performing alongside acts such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

He wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs and released dozens of albums over the course of his career.

However, he remained best known for I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag, a satirical protest song written in 1965 as the United States expanded its involvement in Vietnam.

The track mocked patriotic calls to war while highlighting the cost of sending young soldiers to fight overseas.

McDonald’s performance of the song at Woodstock became one of the festival’s most memorable moments. Before launching into the track, he led the crowd in a chant expressing anger over the Vietnam war.

“Some people alluded to peace and stuff [at Woodstock], but I was talking about Vietnam,” he told the Associated Press in 2019.

The song made McDonald famous but also brought controversy. Television host Ed Sullivan cancelled a planned appearance by Country Joe and the Fish in 1968 after learning about the chant used before the track.

After Woodstock, McDonald was arrested and fined for performing the chant at a concert in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Although closely associated with the protest movement of the 1960s, McDonald continued touring and recording for decades.

He had served in the US navy in Japan in the late 1950s and later helped organise the construction of a Vietnam veterans memorial in Berkeley.

McDonald was married four times and is survived by his wife Kathy McDonald, five children and four grandchildren.