Remembering ‘Country’ Joe McDonald, ’60s Rock Star, Proud Protest Counterculture Icon

Country Joe McDonald, the singer-songwriter whose antiwar anthem “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” became a defining voice of the 1960s counterculture, has died at 84. His wife of 43 years, Kathy McDonald, said he passed March 7 at his home in Berkeley, California, from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

McDonald rose to fame as the frontman of Country Joe McDonald and The Fish, blending folk, psychedelia, satire, and protest music into songs that challenged authority—and rallied a generation. But it was his Woodstock Music Festival performance in 1969 that cemented his place in history.

“Everyone remembers The Fish Cheer. That’s when the crowd became a community—the Woodstock Nation,” said Dr. Neil Hitch, senior curator at The Museum at Bethel Woods. “He signified peace and protest in one performance.”

Arriving onstage Saturday afternoon, McDonald led the audience in The Fish Cheer, then launched into I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag. The performance captured the festival’s spirit: antiwar, yet not anti-America; playful, yet pointed.

“He still believed what he believed in the ’60s,” Hitch said. “Country Joe lived a life preaching what he thought was important.”

Though synonymous with protest music, McDonald and The Fish resisted being boxed into one genre. Their sound was fun, ironic, and always evolving, attracting fans from across the countercultural spectrum.

“Moments like Woodstock, or songs like Give Me an F, are part of our shared history. Country Joe’s legacy is a reminder of a generation that shaped music, activism, and living in peace,” Hitch said.

Image: Country singer Joe McDonald plays during the Heros of Woodstock concert at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, N.Y., Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009, marking the 40th anniversary of the original 1969 Woodstock concert. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)