BERKELEY – Gimme a W.

Gimme an O... Gimme another O.

Gimme a D... Gimme a Y.

What's that spell? .WOODY.

What's that spell? .WOODY!

What's that spell? .WOODY!!

It seems like a natural fit: Country Joe McDonald, the radical and irreverent rock star of the 1960s, famous for his bitingly anti-war "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag" and the notorious "Fish Cheer," performing the songs of Woody Guthrie, the radical and irreverent folk musician of the 1930s and '40s, famous for his topical songs about Dust Bowl refugees, labor organizing and the chasm between rich and poor in a land of plenty.

Guthrie's music had a profound influence on the early 1960s folk music revival, especially on artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs, and continues to influence performers ranging from Bruce Springsteen and U2 to Lila Downs and the Dropkick Murphys. McDonald's band, Country Joe & The Fish, remains in the popular consciousness as one of the emblematic rock groups of the late '60s counterculture.

And on Thursday evening, McDonald will present "A Tribute to Woody Guthrie" at Sacramento's 24th Street Theatre. It's a 90-minute, one-man show of Guthrie's songs – including "This Land Is Your Land," "Union Maid," "Roll on Columbia" and "Pastures of Plenty" – and writings, told and performed in the dry, deadpan manner that links both musicians.

"I grew up with union music and protest music," says McDonald, 65, during a recent interview in the north Berkeley home he shares with his wife and two teenage children. He recalls first hearing Guthrie on an album his parents owned, "Songs of the Dust Bowl," when he was 6 or 7 and growing up in the San Gabriel Valley.

Other connections run deep: Like Guthrie, Country Joe's father, Worden "Mac" McDonald, grew up in Oklahoma, rode the rails and moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Both men held left-wing political views and married Jewish women from the East Coast. And both had sons who became famous musicians in the late '60s (Arlo Guthrie and Country Joe, respectively).

But McDonald also recognizes another affinity between himself and Guthrie: He believes neither man could, or should, be pigeonholed.

He acknowledges that he's been "defined" by what he did at Woodstock in 1969 – something about that cheer and the "One, two, three, what are we fighting for?" lyric to "Fixin' To Die Rag" – and is seen as a political type who spreads his views as he travels around the country.

"But I don't see myself as that," McDonald says. "Protest is part of it, but I do lots of different kinds of music – spiritual, dance, rock 'n' roll, blues.

"And some of the subjects I'm interested in – like the military family (McDonald spent three years in the U.S. Navy in the early 1960s and has devoted much time to issues involving Vietnam War veterans) – are not fashionable in the progressive community, or the right."

As for Guthrie, McDonald points out that "he was in the merchant marine during the Second World War and was torpedoed three times. And he was drafted into the Army, too. I think he was a loyal, patriotic American."

In his show, McDonald quotes Guthrie as saying, "I ain't necessarily a communist, but I have been in the red all my life." While he "pushes" Guthrie's radicalism in his show, including singing the often-neglected "No Trespassing" verse in "This Land Is Your Land," McDonald also notes that Guthrie never gave up his belief in Jesus Christ and his view that "Christ was a man of the people."

As for his own politics, McDonald says, "I wasn't infatuated with communism and I wasn't infatuated with capitalism, but I had an attitude and I liked satire."

And creatively, McDonald says, "Woody Guthrie was kind of like James Joyce. The guy couldn't stop writing, he couldn't stop drawing and he couldn't stop singing. When he and (pal and fellow folk singer) Cisco Houston got off the merchant marine for two days in New York City, they went into Moe Asch's studio and recorded 135 songs in two days. Every kind of song you could think of. The guy was a machine."



McDonald at the event that pushed him into the international limelight - Woodstock, in 1969.
Jim Marshall /

Click on photo to enlarge


Woody Guthrie
Robin Carson / Courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Foundation

Click on photo to enlarge


"I'm lucky to have an occupation that I can continue doing," says Joe McDonald.
Jim Block /

Click on photo to enlarge

McDonald actually began performing Guthrie's music in 1969, when he recorded his first solo album, "Thinking of Woody Guthrie," in Nashville. It would become the first of many Guthrie tribute albums by various artists.

Then in 1970, McDonald was asked by Marjorie Guthrie, Woody's widow, and Harold Leventhal, manager of the Guthrie archives, to write music for a Guthrie lyric that had none, and to perform the song at a Hollywood Bowl "Tribute to Woody Guthrie" concert.

"They wanted to push the image the public had of Woody Guthrie," McDonald says. "Instead of being that protest troubadour and hobo, they wanted him to be (thought of) as a modern writer, which he was."

McDonald found an erotic lyric by Guthrie titled "Woman at Home," which, according to Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter and current director of the Guthrie archives, was the first effort "that began opening this other door to Woody."

In the 1980s, McDonald produced an album by Joady Guthrie, another son of Woody's, titled "Spies on Wall Street."

McDonald's Guthrie tribute show began in 2001, when the John Steinbeck Center in Salinas hosted a touring Smithsonian Institution exhibit about Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land." McDonald was asked to perform at the opening.

After some research, McDonald found other unfinished songs and poems about subjects as varied as sex and automobiles, plus "Woody Sez" newspaper columns from the West Coast communist newspaper the People's World and humorous correspondence between Guthrie and friends such as folk singer Malvina Reynolds ("Little Boxes"). He put these various elements into his show.

McDonald has added some very personal parts to his concert, telling stories about his father and reading from his dad's autobiography, "An Old Guy Who Feels Good." The show also features a touching story about his father seeing Country Joe & the Fish performing "Fixin' To Die Rag" in the "Woodstock" movie as well as the Woody Guthrie song his father asked Joe to sing when he lay dying – "So Long It's Been Good To Know Ya."

Nora Guthrie, who has known McDonald for years, says "Joe is like a brother to us," and she loves McDonald's "Tribute," which she saw in New York a few months ago.

"I think he's nuts," she says, with a laugh, "and that's a good thing in Guthrie language.

"My favorite thing about Joe's show is his delivery – it's so dry. It's very much like Woody's humor, too," she says. As an example of the latter, she cited "The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949," the recently released live-concert album that won the 2008 Grammy Award for best historical album, in which her father spends lots of time talking about the songs he's performing.

"The show that Joe does is exactly like that – 10 minutes to explain a five-minute song – but that's Woody."

McDonald acknowledges that "in the show you hear me talking more than I normally talk. The show wears me out, but I enjoy it. And I like the fact that it closes with my father. It kind of brings it home for me and the audience."

McDonald will soon release a live two-disc CD of his "Tribute to Woody Guthrie" on his Rag Baby label (available through his Web site, www.countryjoe.com).

He'll also take part July 1 in an effort in Concord to break the world record for the most guitarists playing together on a song. (The record, set in Adelaide, Australia, is 1,700.) McDonald will play his guitar and lead the group in a rendition of "This Land Is Your Land."

Woody Guthrie spent the last 13 years of his life in a New Jersey hospital, suffering from a degenerative nerve disorder now known as Huntington's disease. He died in 1967 at age 55.

Country Joe McDonald has no plans to retire soon.

"Eubie Blake, the great pianist who performed into his 90s, talked about the pain of rehearsing and practicing," McDonald says, "and that's a reality.

"One enormous part of it for me is that I haven't hit the lottery, and in certain professions you don't have a pension plan.

"But I'm lucky to have an occupation that I can continue doing."



About the writer:
Call The Bee's Bruce Dancis, (916) 321-1112.

Joe McDonald, 65, shown at his north Berkeley home last week, carries on the Woody Guthrie tradition – and still plays many other styles of music.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com

Click on photo to enlarge


McDonald at the event that pushed him into the international limelight - Woodstock, in 1969.
Jim Marshall /

Click on photo to enlarge


Woody Guthrie
Robin Carson / Courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Foundation

Click on photo to enlarge (Ha, I wish! Why can't we post pics? Oh Dave)

If, instead of pasting the text in your post here, you put the url to the site in your post, we can see the photos. Just paste the url, highlight it, and click on the little url button above where your text is.

I wish Country Joe weren't banned from WoodyFest--I'd love to see him there. We didn't go the year he was there, but they say that Mary Jo's husband was not amused when he did the "Fixin' to Die Rag."

Here's the link:
http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/story/806474.html

That's a shame Mary Jo's husband was not amused when he did the "Fixin' to Die Rag". Heck, Pete used to do that one in shows with Arlo. Pete does a great version of it...

Could it be the "Fish" cheer lead-in to "Fixin' to Die Rag" that disturbs Mary Jo's husband?

That was it. It IS Oklahoma, after all.

Maybe he should have sang this song? (Only just over 400 and 50 views of this? I may have sent that many out myself.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87ryX961UK0

take it anyway you can...
mcd

Oh ya fellow blunders on the w bench. This link is real short and 2 the point. A plan by 40 running for Congress and in Congress, along with are tired General or 2 on board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpvuCuNs ... 94074.html

From the huffpost,
mcd

(How I would love to talk to that sweet voice of Arianna's someday.

Ceashel quote: If, instead of pasting the text in your post here, you put the url to the site in your post, we can see the photos. Just paste the url, highlight it, and click on the little url button above where your text is.

Most people won't take the time to follow a link. If I could post the pics here it would open up the article to a lot more people. I guess next time I will include the link as well as the text.

Why can't we post pics here?

Doug

Why can't we embed the you-tube link, and a cool screen shows up.

I passed over link after link here on arlonet, not knowing what they were.

Bandwidth (cost)

If you want to post pics that folks can see in here, then you jhave to upload them to somewhere on the internet like a free photo hosting site. Then, post the link to your pic on here & folks will have to go to that site to view it on here. But it can't be viewed in this site tho. Hope this info helos...

Too bad, it would make for a more enjoyable site for the pics to be part of the post. Most people won't follow a link.

Those cost could always be covered by some cool sponsors placing their ads here. There are plenty of products that would be relative and eco conscious.

I always liked the Vanguard Thinking of Woody album complete with Nashville session musicians (Grady Martin playing with Country Joe on Pastures of Plenty...who'd a thunk?)

a. disagree - folks here will click on anything, they'll certainly follow a link.
b. sponsors? Not needed nor desired. Arlo.Net is for Arlo. Why share it with other 'products'?
c. who says you can't embed a photo into a post? We just don't encourage much of that. but we don't stop you either. (within respectable limits)

I think arlo.net is a real enjoyable place.