Country Joe's Place

Older Posts

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Outside links in older posts may have died.

    2019

    o See a video of the Surrealistic Summer Solstice Jam in Golden Gate Park (right).

    2018

    o The New York Times has an opinion piece about music and the Vietnam war.

    o I put on a show at the San Francisco County Jail for Heroes' Voices, an organization that does music and poetry events for inmate veterans. Check it out. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Kevin Fisher-Paulson was there and gives this account.

    2017

    o There's an interview with me up on the Grateful Web.

    o Read journalist Eric Margolis's take on "The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick." I have not watched the series ... and Christpher Koch's piece sums up most of the reasons why. Here's yet a third view from Anh Lee. For factual background on the war, there's Julian Bonds' comic book from 1967.

    o A lawsuit is claiming that Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" is in the public domain. Read about it.

    o From Leah Garchik, March 22, San Francisco Chronicle, a deeper look into the "buck" cheer entering further into everyday speech:

    Upon reading a recent Overheard about a four-letter word we’ll call “buck” being usable as just about every part of speech, Cathy Robbins referred the matter to her friend Aaron Smith, an academic with a doctorate in linguistics. Smith wrote a brisk refutation: “It just isn’t true! Buck is not a grammatically fascinating word.” It can be used as a noun and a verb, but that’s not unusual, he writes, as well as an interjection — but that’s all. According to Smith, “the assumption of the adjectival status of ‘buck’ is a misanalysis of the use of the word in compounds like ‘buck face,’ ‘buck head,’ etc.” He explains further that you can’t use buck as a comparative or superlative, and that “‘bucker’ is not the same as the agentive noun ‘bucker’ as in ‘what a bucker.’”
    I got completely lost in the linguistic briar patch of his explanation, but thank you, Professor Smith, for sharing your wisdom. (Though my spellcheck didn’t much like “misanalysis” and “agentive”).

    o Jimmy Hayes, bass singer for the a cappella group The Persuasions, has died at 74. Read an obituary.

    2016

    o I was at the LBJ Presidential Library for the Vietnam War Summit. Read recaps at its website, or see video here.

    o Alec Palao interviewed me at the Berkeley Historical Society on May 15th as part of its exhibit "Soundtrack to the 60s: The Berkeley Music Scene." See the video.

    o Folk singer/songwriter Peter Krug who played on my Rag Baby EP#1 has passed away. He died in his sleep at his home in the Bay Area.

    o Larry Colburn, who was credited along with Hugh Thompson Jr and Glenn Andreotta, for stopping the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, passed away December 13. Larry was the door gunner, Hugh Thompson Jr the pilot and Glenn Andreotta the crew chief of the UH-1 Iroquois transport helicopter that day landing into the ongoing slaughter and stopping it. You can listen to a recording I made of Fred Greco's "Warriors of Humanity" about the episode.

    o The new, improved, relocated San Francisco Vietnam memorial plaque was dedicated on Veterans Day. Learn more.

    2015

    o Listen to a podcast of my talk at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club on August 20.The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed me about my talk.

    o Michael Gates has written a column for the Yukon News about Robert W. Service and me.

    o Read my review of John Pirozzi’s documentary film Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll at the EatDrinkFilms website.

    o Nellie McKay covered my song "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" on A Prairie Home Companion. It's on her new album My Weekly Reader.

    o Did an event that involved a falling piano inspire Woodstock? Find out here.

    o There's an interview with me in It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine.

    oI was interviewed by the Greek-language online magazine Hit Channel. Here's an English version, courtesy of Google Translate.

    2014

    o We had a reunion of the Blue Fairyland Nursery School in 2014. Learn more.

     

    R.I.P. and thank you Toshi and Pete Seeger.

    Pete and Toshi Seeger were like a second mother and father for me and I was always welcomed in their home. I grew up with his music and my parents took me to his concerts. He influenced my style of getting the audience involved. He was the only person to record my signature Vietnam War song and he told me that he left Columbia Records over a dispute with them about releasing it as a single in 1972. He was the only main stream musician to include my song in his repertoire and that says a lot about the man. Pete and Toshi leave behind a huge family of many generations all over the planet and they sure will be missed.

    2013

  • Vietnam vet W. D. Ehrhart wrote an essay that begins like this:
    Over the past decade or so, it’s become quite the fashion, when people learn that I once served in the Marines, to say to me, “Thank you for your service.” I’m sure they mean well, but I wish they would take just a moment to reflect on what they are saying. I went halfway around the world to a place called Vietnam, where I killed, maimed, brutalized and made miserable a people who had never done me or my country any harm, nor ever would or could.
    Read the rest.

    2012

  • Hurricane Sandy
  • The Arab Spring
  • Watch me and a cast of thousands singing "This Land Is Your Land" in front of San Francisco City Hall on Earth Day.

    2011

  • The Occupy movement
  • The Japanese disaster

    2010

    When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill happened, we put up a page.

    2009

    Visit my page about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

    2008

    From shortly after the 9/11 attacks to the end of 2008 we maintaind this crisis page.

    2006

    Zoe Trodd's new book American Protest Literature is out from the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. I have my own chapter and a nice quote on the Woody Guthrie chapter. The editor writes:

    "The book traces the history of protest literature, photography, music, art, film, and dance in America -- I also teach a course at Harvard that had 300 students last semester (one of the biggest ones at Harvard), in which we study you and your music (it's called American Protest Literature: From Tom Paine to Tupac). It's been quite controversial -- we led the 3000 student walk-out in 2003 against the war and ran teach-ins, and this semester had Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kevin Bales, Howard Zinn, and Tony Kushner come to speak. It seems to have spawned similar courses around the country. I'm hoping this book will cause a splash too, and put protest literature and music on the academic map a bit more. Howard Zinn is writing the book's afterword, and Harvard Press are marketing it as a general interest hardback and paperback book, as well as an academic book."

    Mary Jo Dimbat passed away in September 2006. The Dimbats were early fans and supporters of Country Joe and the Fish, and the band's first album was dedicated to them. Martin Dimbat died last year. From the Contra Costa Times:

    Resident of Concord Mary Jo Dimbat, beloved mother to Margot A. Larsen and Coralyn Treas; Godmother to Robin E. Bishop; and grandmother to Meleika Hilliard, and Elizabeth and Alexandra Larsen passed away peacefully Aug. 31, 2006. Her life was dedicated to the earnest pursuit of peace between nations, social justice, and philanthropic endeavors. Born Marian Josephine Hubbard Aug. 26, 1921 in Durango, CO, she studied Journalism at the University of Iowa before working at an Ordinance Plant during WWII. She moved to Glen Ellen, CA, after the war with her husband, Martin Dimbat. Together, they raised three children, one of whom, a son, Jerry Dimbat, died tragically in a bus accident during his first year of college. She was a 55-year resident of Concord. She will be remembered for her sincerity and generosity of spirit. Memorial Services to be announced. Donations in her name may be made to the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church or the Mt. Diablo Peace Center.
    2005

    My page about Hurricane Katrina.

    2004

  • The flap about the World Peace Music Awards.

    2003

  • Berkeley's Veterans Day observance.

    2002


    Me and Barry "The Fish" Melton at Lefty O'Doul's in San Francisco for the Marine Corps/Salvation Army Toys for Tots Drive Gala on December 19. Photo by Chet Helms.

  • Rock critic Joel Selvin sends a riddle:
    What do the following artists have in common?
    • Bob Dylan
    • Rolling Stones
    • The Doors
    • Elvis Presley
    • Country Joe & The Fish
    • Bobby Darrin
    Answer here.
  • An obituary for Lynda Van Devanter.

    2001

  • Read Ron Cabral's report on Monterey Pop Revisited.
  • Read a review from my 2001 English tour.

    On stage Hero worship
    Joe on stage at the Berkeley concert March 9; special guest Hugh Thompson, the hero of My Lai, signs an autograph.

  • A patriotic poem inspired by the inauguration of President* Bush.
  • The many uses of the word.

    2000

  • Our page on the zany 2000 election.
  • Here's where we retired the saga of Clinton's zipper wars, along with Clinton.
  • Jim Botkin has kindly allowed me to post his hilarious account of how I got booted from the Standdown 2000 Hootenanny in Oklahoma City.
  • Links about the KPFA beef.
  • A droll occurrence at the 200th anniversary of the Library of Congress.
  • A Fourth of July essay on what happened to the guys who signed the Declaration of Independence.
  • Here are some thoughts on Memorial Day from Lt. Bobby Ross. Read the article from the San Francisco Chronicle about my plan for an SF veterans memorial.
  • Author B.G.Burkett gives Country Joe and ex-Secretary of State Robert McNamara their own special page in his 700-page best seller Stolen Valor (Dallas: Verity Press, 1998). Order a copy.
  • I've been locked out of the Guinness Book of World Records! Find out why.
  • A review of me at the 1999 Woody Guthrie Festival.
  • Our millennium greeting

    1999 and Before

  • A picture of me celebrating the 30th anniversary of Woodstock at Max Yasgur's farm.
  • A page of stuff about the famous Y2K catastrophe
  • A newspaper article about the Ed Sullivan Show appearance that never happened.
  • A poster for a 1998 gig in Asheville, NC.
  • A baby picture of me.
  • A page about Malvina Reynolds and me
  • Me, Monica and Bill.
  • Dorothy Moskowitz as a dreidel.
  • My pages commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
  • A dirty Christmas card.
  • Me in Copenhagen.
  • "The Wall Comes to Berkeley" newspaper article.
  • A scary soundbite from Spiro Agnew in .
  • Handbill from the Beacon Strawberry Festival.
  • Photo from Berkeley, 1998.
  • Some thoughts on the execution of Viet vet Manny Babbitt.

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