Country Joe and the Fish Electric Music for the Mind and Body Vanguard [Listen]

At first, Country Joe and the Fish were indie rockers. Three tracks on this trip-music classic, including the stoner's hymn "Bass Strings" and the drifting instrumental "Section 43," were initially cut by the Berkeley band for a 1966 EP on singer-songwriter Joe McDonald's agitprop label, Rag Baby. He started the Fish as a protest jug band (the name combines nods to Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung) but here temporarily kept his left-wing zest in check. Flanked by the electric organ of David Cohen and Barry Melton's biting-treble guitar, McDonald spread with a preacher's zeal and spearing wit the local gospel of chemical travel and carnal freedom in "Flying High," "Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth" and "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine." In fact, Vanguard insisted the Fish not include one of their most popular tunes, a McDonald zinger that later became a singalong pillar of the anti-war movement: "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag."