Country Joe McDonald
American musician (1942–2026)
Joseph Allen "Country Joe" McDonald (January 1, 1942 – March 7, 2026) was an American singer, songwriter, musician and film composer, who was the lead singer and co-founder of the 1960s psychedelic folk-rock group Country Joe and the Fish. He wrote some of the group's most well-known songs, including "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" and "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag", the latter a protest song against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
After the group's breakup in 1971, McDonald performed as a solo artist and in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, continued to musically espouse his political views through his original songs.
Early life and early career
McDonald was born in Washington, D.C., on January 1, 1942, and grew up in El Monte, California, where he had moved with his parents, Florence and Worden McDonald.
His father, Worden, was born in Oklahoma and raised on a farm 100 miles (160 km) from Woody Guthrie's birthplace of Okemah. Worden worked for the phone company and, as a young man, traveled the country riding the rails, working odd jobs. His mother, Florence Plotnick, was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and served for many years as the City Auditor of Berkeley, California. In their youth, both were Communist Party members and named their son after Joseph Stalin, though they later renounced the cause.
In high school, McDonald was the conductor and president of the marching band. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and spent three years stationed in Japan.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q722395. VIAF identifies the subject as 57829084. The Library of Congress control number is n88603689. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 2026 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Country Joe McDonald” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.