Country Joe and Me
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Copyright © 2003
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Ron Cabral served with Joe in the Navy and recently retired as a San Francisco school principal. |
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CHAPTER 1: RED DIAPER BABY Washington, DC -- 1942
Joe's grandmother Bella Voronoff was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who had opposed the Czar in Russia in 1905. She and her sister Rose left Russia to seek a new life in Anerica. Bella often took Joe's mom to political meetings in D.C. Oddly enough, Bella also became one of the first female truck drivers in the D.C. area. Joe's father Worden McDonald grew up in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and the Depression era. He was a very adventurous young man who had gone to seek his fortune in Alaska. During the 30's, however, Worden began to participate in the American Labor Movement, and his politics took a turn for the left. A few years after his ideals jelled, he met and married Florence. It seemed a perfect match. I met both Joe's parents in the late 60's after they finally moved to Berkeley from Southern California. I liked them right away and they were always very friendly to me -- Joe had introduced them to me as his Navy pal from Japan. After Joe began to work his way into the music industry, Joe's parents liked to reminisce and relive some of Joe's early musical leanings. Worden said, "When Joe was about 10 years old, he played the harmonica, I would ask him if he could play a certain song, and he would always say no. But then he'd say 'well if you could whistle it for me I can play it.' Then he would just play it -- I always thought that was pretty amazing." Worden also said, "Joe began playing the trombone in school. He liked it right away and started practicing at least three hours a day at home. He got pretty good at it as time went along. When Joe got to high school he had a good sound -- I enjoyed hearing him practice." Besides music, Joe was also a good horse rider in his youth. He could do figure eight's in a gallop in a small corral. The McDonald's had several horses where Joe grew up in El Monte. "It seemed that when he wasn't busy with guinea pigs, horses, rabbits or dogs he was taking a music lesson or practicing," said Joe's mother, Florence. Joe grew up in the period during and right after World War II. The country and society was still in shock at the atrocities man could commit. "Joe was always a very sensitive child his music seemed his link to sanity," Florence said. "When I was very young I learned from my mother about the death camps for Jews in World War II. My mother and I had many arguments about our heritage. I couldn't not understand how we as non-believers and non-practicing Jews could have been killed for being Jewish if we had lived say in Germany or Russia during WWII." "When the pogroms come they will find you," Joe's mother always said. Joe had nightmares about these things when he was very young. Joe had dreams about being taken away to concentration camps by boogiemen. He had a hard time with these dreams for a long time. "Later in life, I realized that I was defined as a Jew by Jew haters not by myself. Also I came to realize that my mother was suffering from survivor guilt and post traumatic stress syndrome from her experience of being the child of Russian Jewish immigrants." Most people do not grow up with the reality Joe experienced as a red diaper baby. The truth was that Joe's parent's politics filled some American's with hate and anger. "It isn't fair to place that burden on children. Like so many others, I was forced to react to the situation inherited at birth. All red diaper babies know what I am talking about," said Joe. Joe never cared much for the rhetoric or activities of the radical labor movement in which his parents were engrossed, according to Florence. She never seemed disappointed, and in fact, was very proud of the music bug that gripped Joe in his youth. "The music of the men and women struggling for a better life appealed to him," she said. Florence McDonald went on to be elected to the Berkeley city council and served in that office for many years. Worden remained an activist around Berkeley and wrote a book called An Old Guy Who Feels Good. Joe even though he had disagreements with his parents from time to time always remained devoted to them. Joe lived in El Monte in Southern California, from the ages of 5 to 17 in the time when no freeways went through the town. His father was a long time employee of Bell Telephone in downtown LA, but he loved to play farmer in their quarter acre homestead by having a nice garden and animals. Those days gave Joe a real love and appreciation for animals. Joe had a special horse named Rebel. They never used a bit on him because it hurt his mouth. Joe liked to ride him bareback. One day Worden rode Rebel to pick up Joe after school. Joe had his trombone with him, and he climbed up behind his father with the trombone case hanging alongside the horse. On the way home Worden decided to let Rebel experience meeting a train at a railroad crossing. The train started coming and as it got closer, its whistle grew louder and louder. Rebel started jumping around while Worden tried in vain to control the horse. Joe held on to his father as he fought the animal that got more agitated and tried to rear up. Joe slid off with his trombone when he finally got the opportunity. With Joe off the horse, Worden got the animal under control. After that though, Rebel didn't seem to mind trains at all. Joe had a number of harrowing experiences on the back of a horse while growing up. Joe was riding Rebel bareback in his small back yard one day, and he brought the horse to a brisk canter. The canter was a crazy move, as Joe's yard was such a small area with a garden, some fruit trees and a garage all crammed into a small area. Joe suddenly lost control and slipped off Rebel falling down his side, bouncing off his chest, and landing flat on his back on the ground in front of him. Joe looked up to see a hoof coming right down on his face. At that point Rebel looked Joe straight in the eyes and lifted his hoof out of the way and hopped over him. Joe always said Rebel was a good horse. Joe and I have shared ancestry when it comes to communist Russia. My grandmother, Thelma Gorbonoff, and her family also fled Czarist Russia in 1906-07. At that time men were conscripted for 25-year hitches for the Czar's Army. They were poor peasants living in Siberia near the town of Chita, when they decided to flee and head east towards Harbin, Manchuria. They loaded up all the horse-drawn wagons they could find and drove across the Siberian plains much like the pioneer's of the old west did crossing along the Oregon Trail. If both Joe's and my family hadn't fled, we certainly would not have had as much fun in the 60's. After a huge ordeal they arrived in Harbin to hear of jobs in a place called Hawaii. Dole Pineapple Company had sent recruiters out to Harbin to try and hire white labor to work in the fields in Hawaii. It was a time of racism and "yellow peril" fears in Hawaii. They offered the Russians one ruble a day if they agreed to make the long sea voyage to Honolulu. My grandmother's family signed up. As they were boarding a ship in Korea for the trip to Hawaii via Japan, Thelma's younger brother, a 10-year-old boy, disappeared at dockside. His disappearance was noted just as the ship had cast lines and was headed out. Screams for the Captain to stop went unheard from the distraught Russians in steerage. The boy Vasily was never found or heard from again. After years of working in the fields of Hawaii, Thelma met a Portuguese-American sailor named Charles Cabral who worked on the San Francisco-Honolulu run for Matson Lines. They fell in love, married and Charles took Thelma to a better life in San Francisco. They lived for years on Potrero Hill, a working class neighborhood with stunning views of the San Francisco Bay. I often visited her there when she was in her last years and heard her stories of how she came to America. She felt the Czar was a rat the way he treated the people and in her mind Joe Stalin saved Russia. She was sad when Stalin died in 1953. I watched her cry while watching Stalin's funeral on TV. Neither Russian Orthodox nor Jewish, she was connected someway to the Molokan Sect, a type of holy-roller Christian congregation that settled along the West Coast from Seattle to Baja California. There was a large contingent of Molokans who settled on Potrero Hill. Illiterate in both English and Russian she lived to age 94 and is buried in Seaside, California. My father Ernest Cabral was born in Hawaii in 1914. He arrived in San Francisco in 1918 with Thelma and grew up on Potrero Hill. He lived there till he married my mother Flora Martinez in 1940 - I came along a year later. Flora had come to San Francisco as a 5-year old immigrant from Costa Rica in 1924 with her mother Sara and brother Claude. Ernest and Flora met during the Depression era of the 1930's while Flora was attending Mission High. My father served in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) after he graduated from Commerce High in 1933. In those days a young man had pretty much only two choices -- enlist in the Army for $21.00 per month or join the CCC for $30.00 -- there were few other jobs. Ernest was assigned to a road building crew in the remote forests of Modoc County in Northern California. He later became a career civilian employee of the U.S. Army as an overseas supply specialist at Fort Mason and the Oakland Army Terminal. My mother operated her own beauty shop for 35 years in the city. While Joe was attending Arroyo High School in El Monte, he became totally obsessed with music. Fourteen-year-old Joe mastered the techniques for playing the trombone. At the same time he learned the acoustic guitar, and he was developing his vocal and song writing talents. From 1955 to 1957, Joe was a member of the school concert band, which played mainly, marches, and modern pieces by composers like Aaron Copeland and Richard Rogers. Joe often fell asleep with the radio on tuned to LA stations that played Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Fats Domino, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and others. Joe also played in a Dixieland jazz band, and he had become familiar with the works of Jack Teagarden, Dave Breubeck, Turk Murphy and J.J. Johnson. Since Joe was also a member of the school marching band, he had to go to all the football games and run up and down the field at half time playing Souza marches. Sometimes after marching, he would go straight home to rehearse his own rock and roll band. Young Joe was living a very real musical life -- he was experiencing music of all types all at once. Joe got his first money gig while still in high school. A friend got him a gig, playing trombone in a dance band. The band had 15 pieces and played tunes like "Star Dust", "Deep Purple" and "Moon Glow." "My parents always had music on at home," said Joe. "I heard lots of Gilbert and Sullivan with Spike Jones, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger thrown in." On weekends Joe would go to the El Monte American Legion Stadium to see Fats Domino, and Johnny Otis. As a senior in high school, Joe decided to put his first band on the road. The band was called The Nomads. The band was made up of one guitar, a snare drum, a sax and vocals. There was no bass player. The Nomads soon broke up and Joe started his second band called The Tanganyika Trio. The trio was a kind of calypso band with congas and bongos. They did a few gigs in Orange County and in Pasadena at some folksy bohemian type coffee houses of the late 50's. The trio lasted for four months until right after Joe graduated from Arroyo at age 17. Joe's third band was a little different from The Nomads and The Tanganika Trio -- that band was The San Diego Naval Station Recruit Drum and Bugle Corps. This time Joe was a bugler and not the leader of a rock or calypso band. Joe being a highly proficient trombone player had no trouble learning to play a bugle. Joe could easily have ended up playing in a Navy band, but for some reason he assigned to Naval Aviation and soon found himself off to Navy Air Control School in Olathe, Kansas. He was somewhat disappointed as he thought he was going to be sent to Signalman School. When he arrived at Olathe he spent a month cleaning out large pots at the base mess hall.
Bowman spent his days as the man in charge of the air control tower operator unit. You could tell from his age and attitude that Chief Bowman was one of those rare sailors who totally loved the Navy. The chief often said the Navy pulled him out of the gutter and gave him a home when he was a kid of 18. Bowman was also a vehement anti-communist constantly worried about the commies in Russia, China, North Korea and elsewhere that were trying to take over the world. He raved constantly about it to anyone who listened. So, it surprised me little when he returned an hour later talking about the chief raving about "commie whores" in the bars in town. I looked up blankly, and he finally introduced himself as "Joe McDonald from El Monte, California." We made small talk and then the subject turned to music. Joe went on to say he mainly liked folk music and that he really enjoyed the Kingston Trio, Harry Belafonte, Little Richard and Richie Valens. Joe also mentioned that he played trombone. I had just had my trombone shipped over to me from San Francisco and it was in the flight simulator building across the street from the tower. An odd looking and distinct sounding instrument, the trombone has killed more friendships, potential dates and conversations than it ever helped. At the time I met Joe, high school band had none of the stigma of today, but that fear of trombone reprisal still weighed on each of us. So being two admitted trombone-playing Californian's was enough to guarantee we would spend much time together during our tour of duty. Joe asked me to show him around the operations building, especially the control tower. We soon went up into the tower, and I introduced him around to the air control petty officers on duty. Joe showed an immediate interest and excitement in his future job. "I can't wait to get on the duty rotation," he told the duty crew. A few of the disgruntled Navy petty officers stopped their activity for a nano-second to gape at Joe. Joe said, "I sure do love to watch those Navy and Marine planes take off and land." It is always easier to make excited comments when you're the new guy. The barracks we lived in were built by the U.S. Navy Seabee's (the Navy's construction battalion) right after the U.S. Occupation of Japan began right after WW II ended in 1945 -- they had been remodeled some in the 50's. Our particular barracks was organized into partitions so that numerous men shared three high bunks and each man had a fairly good-sized personal locker. The head was a long walk away from the bunk areas with a row of 12 gleaming urinals and 12 toilets without stalls, doors or any other methods of privacy -- this changed after a few months as stalls were finally added. The sinks were often full of multi-colored bugs each morning during the warmer weather. Beetles, worm-like creatures and various crawlies disappeared after running the water for a few minutes, but the next morning they were all back. Showers were often packed with sailors. The Navy seemed to have an unwritten zero privacy rule. In a shower filled with guys, there were usually more tattoos than people. Many sailors made the mistake of having their girl friends name put on their arm only to eventually get the "Dear John, I found someone else" or "I can't wait anymore" letter. Those letters called for a trip back to the tattoo parlor to have "Mom" or some other design tattooed over the name. And always there was music playing in the barracks; country music like Johnny Cash singing "I Walk the Line" played over and over. Two Japanese houseboys kept the barracks spotless. The houseboys made up the bunks each morning, waxed and buffed the floors, shined shoes and took out and picked up laundry. Some of the barracks workers fought in the Japanese military during the War, it was an odd arrangement. Every month each sailor would chip in $5.00 as a tip for the workers. We were both 18. I had been at the base a few months, so when Joe first arrived, he and I walked the base to show him some of the sights. The base was very famous because it had been a kamikaze training center during WWII. General Douglas MacArthur landed at Atsugi in 1945 on his way to take the Japanese surrender on the deck of the battleship U.S.S Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The base chapel was actually a former Buddhist temple that was used by the Kamikaze pilots during their training. It was a common procedure to register your religious preferences with the chaplain when arriving on base. On one of our walks, Joe and I stopped off to do just that -- I can't recall what religion Joe registered. In boot camp dog tags were issued and a religion was stamped on it. Joe asked the chaplain if he knew of any orphanages or places that would like to hear some American folk music -- Joe was already looking for a gig and had somehow just aquired a guitar. The chaplain said he would let us know if he heard of anything but he had a sort of rueful look in his eye. Our conversations seemed to always come back to music … or women. Joe asked, "Do you know anybody who likes to make music around here?"… "Do you know any girls out in town?" …What are some of the real good bars?" A sailor named Larry Parmenter heard Joe play some guitar out on the barracks fire escape one evening and told Joe he had a small recording system put together with a good tape recorder and speakers over in the Link Trainers (flight simulator) shack. Larry invited some of us over for a jam session. It wouldn't take long before we would be there and on a regular basis. There was much to see on the base, and many months passed for most of the new guys before they were able to see even half. A young sailor first arriving might see some U-2 aircraft flying out of Atsugi. The controversial U-2 spy plane made big news in 1960 as pilot Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union and had been captured as a U.S. spy. The day before that made the news I saw one take off -- it just went straight up like a rocket and disappeared -- the U2's had been flying out of Atsugi for a long time. After Powers was shot down (he did not fly out of Atsugi) the U.S. had to admit to the fact that it had been spying on Russia and other countries for a long time with the high altitude spy plane. One evening we went to the EM or "Enlisted Man's" club . The club had a massage parlor manned by several young Japanese women and slot machines in the lobby, just like in Vegas or Reno. "Happy Hour" was from 7 to 8 p.m., and all drinks cost a dime. Since there was no limit on ordering, it was not uncommon for a sailor to order a dozen whiskey sours or beers at one time, and just sit there ingesting them until they were gone. After a night of drinking, the sailor would often pass out, get dragged back to the barracks by his mates and thrown into his rack. Sailors woke, vomited and passed out again throughout the night often coating the floor with puke. A few nights later we went over to the EM club to see the singing legends The Mills Brothers. A Japanese swing band, and a singer called the Japanese Nat King Cole were also appearing. The place was packed, but the Brothers were an hour late. By the time they started singing "Glow Worm" it was too late. Most of the sailors were blind drunk and made so much noise the legends could not be heard past the first row. The Mills Brothers got upset and left early so the Japanese Nat King Cole impersonator had to come on sooner than he expected. Right after that a Japanese 40's style dance band started playing Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller style tunes. The base clubs always put on great shows drawing both name U.S. talent and local talent from the Tokyo-Yokohama area. We just took it all for granted. Bob Hope even appeared at the base once while we were there but I recall being on duty that night so I missed seeing him. During a break Joe asked one of the trombone players and the bandleader if he could sit in on a song or two. They hesitated, but finally said yes. Joe walked to the section and took the trombone. The band started to play, and Joe didn't even hesitate. He put the mouthpiece to his lips, still warm from the other guy blowing on it, and joined in on "Perfidia" then "Pennsylvania 6-5000." Joe could really blow that horn -- he had a great tone and could really project that t-bone sound. The sailors hardly noticed. A couple of sober fellows in the audience who were close enough to hear perked up at the sound of Joe's jazzy playing, but for the most part, Joe's Japanese debut went unnoticed. After the set, Joe handed the trombone back to its owner who looked at the thing like he had never seen it before. In 1960 any sailor regardless of age could drink all manner of alcohol every night. Some became full-blown alcoholics before reaching 20 years old. If they were not drinking on base, then they were in town drinking at the bars, which is precisely what Joe and most of us did every chance we could. Joe and some of the guys from the barracks often headed out to the nearest town Sagami-Otsuka. The town was 2 miles from the base and could best be reached by bus or cab. Rice paddies surrounded the town, and with rice paddies came the smell of human fertilizer. Small tank trucks with suction hoses would drain out the wastes collected from each houses septic tank in the area and deliver the stuff to a processor who added chemicals to it and sprayed it directly on the rice paddies. By the heat of August the smell was at its peak. This practice of using human wastes has been going on for thousands of years in Japan, but the strangest thing was the base had a huge 18-hole golf course that buttressed right up to a wire fence separating the golf course from the rice paddies. Some times the golfers and the rice farmers would look at each other through the fence -- they would just sort of stare at each other with that god-awful stench hanging in the air. Sagami-Otsuka looked like a town out of the old American west. It boasted dirt streets and over fifty bars that could pass for western movie set saloons. The town also had two or three hotels (the best being the Cherry Hotel), a few small country style houses, and a train station with service to Tokyo and Yokohama. Each bar was run by a mama-san that employed eight to ten young women who hustled drinks … and their bodies after closing time. These were the same women that Chief Bowman warned Joe and everyone else on base about. He said that many of them were not Japanese, but they where North Korean spies and they only wanted to collect secrets about base activities. I still don't know if that was true, or if it was just Bowman's paranoia. The women would take a sailor to a hotel or nearby house for the night for less than $10.00 or about 3,600 Yen. Sometimes they would have sex for free if the sailor would promise to bring them cigarettes and other goods from the Base Exchange -- a carton of cigarettes cost $1.00 in 1960. Venereal disease was a problem at the base and the common procedure was to put the man who came down with it on restriction for two weeks and prescribe anti-biotics. Then the afflicted sailor would have to go the base security office and identify the picture of the woman he may have been with from a certain bar. The base security office had binders for each bar in town containing photos of all the bar workers. A Japanese health inspector would then go out to the bar and issue her a ticket for a required health examination. The woman with the disease would then disappear for a spell while being treated. The different venereal diseases were a painful and difficult experience to cope with -- especially under the Navy "no privacy" blanket. Any pressure or constrictions of the private area proved painful. So, sometimes a sailor with a bad case of some STD often removed the mattress off a bottom rack and lay naked and face down on the springs allowing his genitals to hang through soaking it in a vial of some kind of blue fluid. In those days there were various strange treatments for sailors who had some forms of VD or non-specific urethritis (NSU) or shankers as the medics didn't really know what remedies to use or how to cure the maladies exactly. Whenever a Marine Unit in transit was passing through Atsugi the cases of VD skyrocketed. Many of these units had just come from exotic locations and they brought unknown bugs with them. Once off restriction some sailor's celebrated by having a new sharkskin suit tailored for $50 by a shop right outside the base. It was common to see young sailors nattily dressed, some wearing cashmere overcoats for a night on the town. Along the road to town there were open sewers or benjo ditches. Occasionally a sailor with a new suit was found face down and drunk in a benjo ditch by the shore patrol. It was a sorry site to see the SP's pulling a mud-soaked sailor out of one of those ditches during a rainstorm at midnight. I met a few interesting guys from the base, and we eventually became friends. Joe, Larry, Bill Gregory, Henry Butler and I spent a lot of time together. Joe started playing the guitar he had somehow aquired more and more in the barracks and everyone enjoyed his singing and playing. Larry continued to encourage Joe and some of us to keep coming to his shop for the jam sessions which were starting to sound good. Bill, Larry and I joined in on bongos, trombone, mandolin, and on back-up vocals. Joe conducted the sessions like a real rehearsal and we all had a great time. Joe kept saying he wanted to take our little act on the road and perform for the kids in orphanages, but we never heard further from the chaplain so that never happened. Mainly we just had fun with the playing and singing. After we played music Larry would let us all fly the Link Trainers, flight simulator machines called the blue boxes, for a couple of hours. He would give us maps to practice approaches to various airports we never heard of like Saigon and to airports in Laos and Cambodia. This was the first time I had ever heard of Vietnam or Saigon. Larry, an electronic wizard type, would be the simulated ground control approach (GCA) operator and would guide us in for a landing as if we were in IFR or instrument conditions. He would say things like," turn left to 270 degrees and descend to 4,000 feet, steady on-glide path, on-glide path." While flying the Link Trainers we all began to hear about this place called Saigon and this was in the middle of 1960. Since most of us were air control people it was good training to fly the blue boxes especially under the guidance of a Link Trainer tech. While sitting at the Bar Rose in Sagami-Otsuka, I asked Joe why he joined the Navy. "I once saw a recruiting poster in downtown El Monte of a sailor holding up some signal flags on a ship - that image really had an impact on me to join up," Joe said. "I thought I could really sail the seven seas and maybe even get laid in every port." Soon two very friendly bar hostesses came and sat next to us and asked us to buy them drinks -- we gladly did. We were very cool sailors.
Many sailors did try to marry a girl they met in a bar. For some it was love at first sight. Most of the young men had never been around any highly sexual women like the bar workers they met in Sagami-Otsuka. In early 1961 news came that the runway at Atsugi was going to be closed for three months for repairs and some of us base permanent personnel were being transferred for short term duty to nearby bases. I was sent to an Army base called Camp Zama, and Joe was sent to the Mito Gunnery Range at the east-end of Tokyo Bay. Mito was used mainly by the Air Force for target practice. Every day dozens of jet fighters would shoot up the place and it was Joe's job to keep track of the hits and misses and report those scores to the flight leader-circling overhead. While he was in Mito he fell in love with a young Japanese woman about his own age named Toshie. They met in Yokohama when Joe was off-duty. They started living together briefly and he wanted to marry her. During this time I did not see Joe. As it turned out Joe finally left Mito and returned to the Operations Division at Atsugi. He saw Toshie for the last time just before he ended his tour of duty in Japan. His request for marriage was flatly denied by his commanding officer on the grounds that Joe was too young, and he was not capable of supporting a wife. Joe never said anymore about this at least to me. The Navy had a well-kept secret policy of not allowing most marriage requests made by young sailors. They really were trying to prevent "old hookers" from taking advantage of 17 and 18-year-old naďve sailors. There were many cases of 18-year-old sailors falling in love with the first bar girl they had sex with. For many it was the first time, and they fell deeply in love right away. Marriage seemed a logical step. One evening two Shore Patrol men came roaring into the barracks at Atsugi looking for an 18-year-old sailor from Seattle by the name of Jim Weston. Weston had just turned in his application for marriage to the base commander. He was in love with a 45-year-old bar girl who may have met the occupation troops in 1945. The SP shined a flashlight in his face, yanked him out of the rack, ordered him get dressed and pack his sea bag. One of the SP's read Weston his transfer orders saying, " As the Navy was looking out for your best interest you are ordered to report immediately to Sand Point, Washington for further duty." His designated plane was warming up as they spoke at the base airport terminal, and was going to leave in 20 minutes. Weston freaked out and began yelling and screaming every curse imaginable. He threw himself against lockers and waved his arms around like a lunatic. The two SP's grabbed him and his seabag and dragged him down the stairs to a waiting van -- Weston cried, screaming and begged all the way down the stairs. A group of startled sailors, me among them, gathered at the top of the stairs watching - I never even got a chance to say goodbye to him. It was now mid 1961, and Joe was back at Atsugi. Joe seemed like a different guy -- he could have been down about having his marriage request rejected. He kept to himself more, appeared somewhat depressed and did not go out to town with the boys like he did before going to Mito. Joe was assigned to work in the operations office passing out flight maps to pilots, working the ship-to-shore radio called Raspberry Atsugi and he was being trained to become a flight dispatcher. We all really liked the ship-to-shore radio. We could hear propaganda messages in English coming out of Red China, Vladivostok, Russia, and North Korea saying things like, " Imperialist warmonger Eisenhower said today, blah, blah, blah, today…" and so on. We would also get messages from ships at sea. It was very exciting to hear broadcasts from so far away. On occasion we would get to transmit a message over Raspberry and that always seemed exciting.
I was always amazed about how much responsibility the Navy gives its young sailors. Soon after I started in the tower I found myself on the "A" stand giving landing instructions to an entire squadron of jet fighters that were inbound from one of the carriers. "A" stand is the lead position in the tower and the "A" stand operator gives permission for all planes to take off and land. Not only were the fighters coming in but other aircraft as well so that there were as many as 50 planes in the flight pattern at one time. I was able to do this without a lot of problems as I had a kind of knack for this kind of work and pressure. This training helped me years later keep my cool as a public school teacher and administrator. The first day Joe went to the tower he was put right on "A" stand. Joe had some problems making quick decisions, and he even froze up at times. The watch petty officer took him off and assigned him other duties hoping Joe would observe and learn the needed techniques. After two weeks he was sent back down to the operations office and back to dispatch and the Raspberry Atsugi radio. "I had a hard time competing with those older tower guys," Joe confided in me. "I'm glad to be out of there, I made mistakes that could have killed somebody." Like most sailors eventually do, Joe began to sour on his Navy career. He began to look forward to his discharge date. He did flirt with re-enlisting briefly at one point as many sailors do, but quickly came to his senses that he was no lifer.
When my plane lifted off the runway at Tachikawa Air Force Base taking me home to San Francisco, I felt deeply saddened leaving my comrades, Japanese friends and the "Land of the Rising Sun" behind. I had no idea what was in store for me, or even the world, as we all headed full tilt into the 60's.
His parents had a large impact on Joe's music choices. Folk music was always playing in Joe's home while he was growing up in Southern California. "Folk music had a huge influence on me," Joe said. I was surprised at how much Joe had been influenced by his parents, because he hardily mentioned them, or much about his childhood, when we were stationed together in the Navy. Joe and the two hitchhikers stuck around my place for about a week. I took them out sight seeing all around the city. We cruised San Francisco in a blue Ford panel truck that I used for my part-time job delivering library books to merchant ships tied up at San Francisco and Oakland piers. Joe thought the San Francisco summer fog that draped around Twin Peaks and then just poured down into Noe Valley looked like Martian gas. The sight of the fog rolling down the flanks of Twin Peaks, like it does, is really something to behold. As a kid I always loved to watch the fog come in. I thought everyone had fog to watch -- I didn't know I was living in a fairyland like setting, which Noe Valley can be when the climate is just right. There is no place quite like it anywhere. Joe and I continued to catch up on each other's lives that week as we toured the city. Joe told me it was weird going back to El Monte after the Navy. He felt out of sorts, he said. His Navy time had made him a total neat freak, so he would walk around the family home inspecting it for dust and clutter. He made his bed so a quarter would bounce off it and he took lots of showers. He was acutely aware of order and structure. Joe signed up to attend the local junior college, Mount San Antonio in Pomona. Since Joe had lived abroad and served a tour in the Navy, he found most the students were younger, and less mature than he was, and what was worse, none of the people he met at the college had ever served in the military or had ever been outside of California. Most of them seemed boring to Joe. The world was slipping into full '60's mode, so Joe wanted to expand his mind and experience what the world had to offer. He went after his education hoping to accomplish his life altering epiphany, what ever that might have been, but all he found was a bunch of poorly taught, non-inspiring classes. Joe dropped out and got a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door. His vacuum cleaner gig did not provide the moneymaking opportunity he had hoped for and it turned out to be a total disaster. Joe decided to finally take the plunge and become a folk singer. I decided to call another Navy pal from Atsugi, Larry, who lived in Portland. "Joe's coming your way," I said. "Make sure and look out for him. He is with of a couple of wanna be Bar owners, and who knows who else he'll pick up between here and Portland." Turns out Joe made it to Portland, and Larry's place without much fuss. Larry was glad to see Joe, and he continued the Navy connection by calling another buddy of ours, Bill Gregory, who lived in the Seattle area. Bill came down to Portland, and the trio began looking for gigs for Joe to play. Larry and Bill found a club in Portland that featured new talent. Larry talked to the very up-tight owner who agreed, reluctantly, to let Joe on stage. Larry told the guy Joe played the guitar and harmonica at the same time and was something like Bob Dylan. After just two numbers, the owner called Joe off the stage and told him to leave. Apparently, he didn't approve of a certain civil rights song Joe was singing. "I don't allow race music in here," the old red neck bellowed before kicking Joe out. Joe left Portland quite discouraged, and he and his two riders headed further north hoping to find work on a fishing boat. Joe fired up the old Ford and made it all the way to the Alaska border. Joe, Nigel and Mike soon found work in a fish packing plant in a small fishing village. Shortly after arriving in Alaska the Englishmen parted ways with Joe. Seems that the chaps did not like the work and they were soon laid off for slacking off. The boss also told Joe to take a hike. Now Joe was fast running low on gas and food money and he was tired of sleeping in the car so he just decided to make the long drive back to the San Gabriel Valley, alone. I didn't hear from Joe for another year. In early 1964, I was a senior at San Francisco State working on my BA and teaching credential. I had decided to go into teaching early in life, it was a dream or a calling I had as a kid while attending James Lick Junior High in San Francisco. I also wanted to be a pilot in the Navy in the worse way but that one just never quite worked out. The doorbell rang -- it was Joe. He stood at the front door, along side the "House of Beauty", with his new bride, Kathe Werum. Joe looked really different to me. He had a huge mustache and longish hair. "Ron, I've come to Frisco to break into show biz," he said, Kathe was about Joe's size and she wore round wire rimmed glasses. I was happy to see Joe and Kathe and set them up in my brother's vacant bedroom upstairs as he had just shipped out on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. I had no idea Joe had gotten hitched and it really surprised me. I remembered that he almost got married only a few years before this in Japan in 1961. He seemed really serious about it, the show biz thing; it made perfect sense to me, as I knew he had the required talent. I spent a few days with the newly wed's driving them around different neighborhoods of the city hoping to find an apartment. The search was very difficult as Joe said he could only afford $55 dollars a month for rent. We found nothing, but a few days later, Joe called me to say they were staying with a relative of Kathe's over in the East Bay town of Lafayette. I wished him and Kathe well and suggested that we stay in touch.
I was really tied up at San Francisco State and delivering books to U.S. merchant ships every day, so I never made it over to Berkeley to see Joe. Sometime in 1965 Joe invited me to North Beach where he was playing -- with The Berkekly String Quartet-- in a coffeehouse called Coffee and Confusion. The club was on Grant Ave, and it was an old-beatnik era bar from the 50's. I took my then future wife to be Rita Milani along and we were dressed up for a night on the town, I was kind of shocked to see Joe looking like half a beatnik and half a hippie -- Joe was just ahead of the fashion curve of the time so I shouldn't have been startled at all. He played the spoons, guitar, and sang that night. I was impressed that Joe was following his dream. After the gig in North Beach I tried to call him in Berkeley but the phone had been disconnected and there was no new number. I wondered if I would ever see or hear from Joe again, this time I thought for sure we were headed in totally different directions. A few years earlier when I was in high school (1957-58) my buddies Dave Pallavicini and Noel Blincoe and I sometimes drove over to North Beach and hung out in front of Eric Nord's Bagel Shop on Grant Ave (a well known Beat hangout of the times). We also gravitated around places where live jazz was being played, being too young to go in we would just linger out in front to hear the sounds. San Francisco was a great town to grow up in during those years. We liked to see Eric Nord because he was like a giant, with wild hair, and a blonde beard - sometimes he would come out in the street and talk to us. We put on sunglasses and combed our hair funny and made the scene with some of the beatnik's who read poetry and played bongo drums and congas in the coffeehouses around there. It was a cool thing to do on a Saturday night and North Beach was a happening place. One night we saw Rock Hudson come out of the Bagel Shop, we all thought that was really far out seeing Rock. We had no idea at the time that poets and writers like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder frequented those beatnik hangouts. I clearly remember going into City Lights bookstore for the first time then to try and buy a copy of Ginsberg's Howl, but it was sold out. I had read in the San Francisco Chronicle that Lawrence Ferlinghetti the owner of City Lights had been arrested for selling Howl so I wanted to see what the hoopla was all about. I read it years later and then realized why it caused such a commotion. In the early 70's Joe did a project with Ginsberg and wrote some music for the soundtrack of a movie Ginsberg was making called "Tricks." In 1967 the poet Kenneth Rexroth appeared as a guest poet in one of my Horace Mann Junior High English classes I was teaching as part of the poets in the schools program. That same year I would see McClure and Ginsberg at the historic Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park. San Francisco is a big city, but at the same time it is like a small town, you keep running into the same people all the time.
Joe later told me a little story about what was going on in his head during the "Be-In." He said, "The main thought I had was that it was like a Viking tribal celebration and I was a Viking prince in the chief council. The medicine man was Ginsberg who led the chants and I remember Michael McClure reading a strange poem. He kept saying, over and over; and this is really it, and this is really it, and this is really it, and this is really it. During the McClure poem I was peaking on acid and thinking to myself --wow -- this is really it, yep this is really it all right. The whole thing was incredible and unbelievable."
In March of '67 I saw a poster in the Haight showing Country Joe and The Fish appearing at the Avalon ballroom with the Sparrow and a group from Los Angeles called The Doors. This was to be my first visit ever to the new dance hall scene started by Chet Helms and Bill Graham. I took Rita who was 8 months pregnant, and arrived to see the line in front wrapped all the way around the block. This was the first appearance of The Doors in San Francisco and "Light My Fire" had yet to break out as a hit tune. We went to see Joe and caught The Fish set. I was a little startled when Joe sang "The-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag", it was a tune I never really listened to carefully before and it had what I thought at the time some rather chilling and sardonic lyrics -- it got a real rise out of the audience. Seeing Joe in the lobby afterwards he appeared very happy and blown away at the rocket like take off his group was experiencing. He said, "we are going on a 50-city tour, then to Europe, and to LA to make some more records and if we stay together for 20 years we will be playing jazz by then." He patted Rita on the tummy and said, "Hey let's go see The Doors." So we went in and Jim Morrison was singing " Light My Fire" -- I stood transfixed under a blazing strobe light and just couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. I was totally hooked by the rock and roll circus taking place in my home town. By April I helped start up a Rock and Roll Production Company we called The Albatross. The company was made up of several investor teachers from my school, Ron Rumney, Aida Monares, and Paul Kameny plus my brother Dennis. We each chipped in a couple of hundred dollars, had 1000 posters made, advertised on KMPX, and rented California Hall on Polk St. The plan was to put on some good local bands, draw a big crowd and make a fortune quickly. We actually did very well considering none of us knew anything about the music business and the competition on either side of California Hall was really big -- Bill Graham at the Fillmore and Chet Helms at the Avalon. The Albatross only put on two shows, but we managed to book and present Big Brother and the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin, Blue Cheer, and the Salvation Army Banned. This was not bad for a group of junior high teachers. I found out soon after this that Joe and Janis had been in love and living together briefly in the Haight and that Big Brother and Country Joe and The Fish often appeared together. During the first Albatross show at California Hall held on June 29, 1967, admission was $2.50. I recall being backstage and putting several hundred dollars in $1.00 bills and quarters into a paper bag held open by Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen while the band was playing. The money came right from the front door gate receipts. Karpen at first had demanded full payment before his group would even take the stage, but relaxed when he knew we could make the $350 payment -- we had given him a $350 down payment when we first booked the group a few weeks before. Big Brother and Janis had just returned to San Francisco after earning great acclaim at the Monterey Pop Festival only a week before and they were in very high spirits. In less than a year Janis Joplin would be a major rock star. None of us in Albatross knew how great Janis' performance at Monterey was, or even how important the Monterey Pop Festival was till the D.A. Pennebaker film, Monterey Pop, came out sometime later. Pennebacker really captured it all with close up shots of Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips of The Mama's and Papa's looking totally awe stuck, terrified and blown away while Janis electrified the audience. We quickly found out after putting on one more Albatross show that there was no way for us schoolteacher types to compete with the Fillmore or Avalon so we soon abandoned the idea. It sure was fun, however, even if it was just for a New York minute. Still wanting to find a way to stay involved with the music scene I started managing a series of Bay Area based rock bands. There were many new bands emerging all over and many were seeking managers. Every neighborhood seemed to have some band blasting big notes from behind garage doors. I figured since bands mainly play at night I could still teach school during the day and work with the bands in the evening hours. I started to view it as a type of part-time job. The first band I worked with briefly was called the Judge Crater Memorial Blues Band. I did manage to get them just one rather notorious gig. Before any of us knew it we were sitting on a flatbed truck in the deepest part of Hunter's Point -- right in the middle of the projects. The man in charge said to me kind of jokingly, "tell your guys to play like their lives depended on it" -- and they did. Then Bobby Seale took the microphone and made a rousing speech about the Black Panther party to a small crowd made up mainly of media reporters and television crews. Bobby thanked us for coming out then got in a VW Bug and drove away.
In late '67 I took on another group for about a year called Celestial Hysteria -- this was a very young band which had some potential and regularly played clubs around the Bay Area like the Matrix and Dino and Carlo's in San Francisco. Celestial Hysteria has only two claims to fame. One is that they are listed in the back of a book written by the late famed critic Ralph Gleason in 1968 called The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound. The other is that they played a Fillmore-West audition for Bill Graham. I decided to cease representing them right after they played at a packed teen club in San Mateo on the same bill with the emerging Santana band. Santana just a few weeks shy of releasing their first album blew them completely off the stage. I remember standing in the audience with my mouth wide open as Carlos and the boys played "Soul Sacrifice." Another more compelling reason I gave up on them was because the Hysteria members would not sign a record contract offer I had arranged for them with Sire Records. Their parents refused to give permission for them to sign, as they were all under 21. The parents felt strongly that the band members would have to go on tour and would soon drop out of college resulting in all of them being drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam -- as it turned out they may have been right as the Vietnam war was about to boil over. One member of Hysteria, John Barsotti, ended up taking a job at San Francisco State College and eventually became a professor in the Radio and TV Department.
The years 1967-1973 proved to be a roller coaster ride for me in Bay Area Rock and Roll. Joe was my inspirational leader and I had the good fortune to work closely with him both at my school and during the Fillmore and Winterland gigs in '71 and '72. Joe spent countless hours working with the band as they rehearsed in a Mission District basement that was located in an alley right next to a Funeral Home. Gold also recorded a tune Joe wrote that Country Joe and The Fish had recorded earlier called "Summer Dresses." "Summer Dresses" was sung by Robin Sinclair and received lots of airplay on San Francisco radio stations. The band also recorded part of a movie sound track for a movie Joe was in called Que Hacer. The film was made in Chile during 1971 and was directed by Saul Landau. Joe wrote all of the music for this unusual political bi-lingual film about the Chile of Salvador Allende. Gold continued to play "Piece of Your Action" during live performances long after recording it for the movie. Joe also appeared on a 45 record he produced for Gold under his alias Joe Borneo at Golden State Recorders. On that recording of "Summertime" Joe discreetly played keyboards. I found out later that Janis Joplin and Big Brother had recorded "Summertime" some years earlier in the same Golden State Studio. In 1972 Joe tried an experiment and had Gold back him up on "Piece of Your Action" and "Summer Dresses" at a packed gig at Friends and Relations Hall out at the beach. That show was made up of The New Riders of the Purple Sage, Country Joe, Stoneground and Grootna. It was a gig that has never left my memory. I was extremely proud to witness my old Navy buddy Joe who had become Country Joe up there with my band playing together. It was a very sweet moment and the only time Joe ever performed "live" with Gold. During that period Joe also appeared at a few benefits for Opportunity High one being at Winterland with his All-Star band that included a former Gold conga player, the late Sebastian Nicholson. Sebastian went on to tour with Joe in Sweden and Denmark and he became a big hit over there and he ended up living in Sweden for over a year.
By 1973 so much had happened to me since running into Joe at the "Human Be-In" five years earlier. I often remembered what Michael McClure had said it was all about…"And this is really it"…"And this is really it"…he had said, over and over. McClure was right - this was really it all right, even five years later. I was a full-time teacher, married with a growing family and house. I was also at the same time living another life in the midst of the so-called San Francisco sound explosion. I had become part of it somehow. I probably would have never even gotten involved at all if it hadn't been for Joe as I look back on it. It was only a few years before all this that Joe and I were just two young sailors in the U.S. Navy serving our country in a far off land. We never thought then about having the full catastrophe of a full time job, marriage, family, mortgage and career. By 1967 the full catastrophe had hit us both.
After the Golden Sheaf, Janis and Joe just got together. As their personal relationship developed, their bands played the same show at the Avalon. "Soon I started spending nights with her at a flat she shared in San Francisco," said Joe. "Later I moved in with her for a while when she got her own place-- actually I didn't have anyplace to live at the time." Joe and Janis had a brief and very normal boy friend-girl friend thing -- that's about it. They lived together for about three months and they became good friends. They experienced all the activities going on in the Haight/Ashbury. The couple seemed a good fit for each other, but like so many things in Janis' life, she burned with incredible intensity that may have proven to be too all consuming for Joe and they soon broke up. Joe maintained that the real reason for the break up was the constant interference from both of their careers. Joe said, "I was never comfortable living in San Francisco. I considered Berkeley to be my town so I moved back-- it was as simple as that." Joe later ran into Janis from time to time at various concerts. At Woodstock Janis had been doing heroin, and her set with Kozmic Blues Band sounded somewhat disjointed. The set was filmed for inclusion in the Woodstock movie but never made the final cut. I am convinced if Janis had appeared with Big Brother and the Holding Company she would have been the star of both the festival and the subsequent movie. Janis brought a crowd of 10,000 to their feet two years earlier performing with Big Brother and the Holding Company at the Monterey Pop Festival and she could have done it again at Woodstock.
I first met Janis on the 29th of June of 1967 after I hired Big Brother to play at California Hall for Albatross Productions. Albatross Productions was made up of myself, my brother Dennis and some teachers from my school. We thought we could make a make a buck off the hard core San Francisco music scene. One of the reasons such a rag tag group like Albatross was able to get Big Brother was because Rodney Albin, a friend and fellow San Francisco teacher, had put in a good word to his brother Peter Albin who just happened to be the bass player in Big Brother. Our gig was scheduled to go on ten days after the Monterey Pop Festival that had made a serious career breakthrough happen for both Big Brother and the Holding Company and Country Joe and The Fish. The Festival also showcased acts like Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Otis Redding. We had no idea at the time what had just taken place in Monterey. It cost us the Albatross $750 to book Big Brother before the Monterey Pop Festival for one 45-minute set. By 1969, around the time of Woodstock, Janis was pulling down $50,000 per show and Country Joe and The Fish commanded $10,000. It was only a few years before that Joe and Janis had played in a bakery in Berkeley. ED Denson (he spells his first name ED), Joe's former manager told me, "The Fish needed to charge that much (in 1969) because we were about to go to war with China, and all American political subversives were going to be purged and put in jail." Denson said, "We thought we needed to make a lot of money before that happened." I think Denson was putting me on as the war with China never did happen, but he made me think about it. We expected a full house for the Big Brother show at California Hall, but only about 500 people showed up for the Tuesday night presentation -- lots of competition existed from The Fillmore and Family Dog and too bad for us it wasn't held on a Friday night. We were disappointed because we had made and distributed 1000 posters all over the Bay Area and we had advertised on radio KMPX. Milan Melvin a radio personality on KMPX was the emcee. Milan was upset, he said, " I expected to see the line wrapped around the block -- Don't they know what just happened in Monterey?" I shrugged my shoulders, as I had no idea what he was talking about. When Janis arrived she was by herself and dressed all in black. She did not go the dressing room, but hung out by the concession stand eating chips and drinking beer while checking out the small crowd. I experienced some weird sensations when I introduced myself to her and thanked her for appearing at the opening Albatross gig. She just looked at me, smiled and nodded her head. We had hired a poster artist called Gut who charged us $200 to make a poster that would eventually become a collector's item. Seems Gut may have been a bit ripped when he was working and misspelled Big Brother spelling it "Big Broter." Dave Pallavicini made the second Albatross poster for the 4th of July show featuring Blue Cheer and the New Salvation Army Banned. It was a red, white and blue poster with a guy looking like Uncle Sam in the middle pointing out with the typical "I WANT YOU" pose. Aside from the lack of any profit on the show, we were all excited when Big Brother finally took the stage. The band played a series of thundering tunes right from the yet to be released LP Cheap Thrills. Just back from Monterey Pop they were primed and pumped up. Janis and the band tore the place up with "Piece of My Heart" then "Down on Me" driving our small audience crazy. When the set ended the foot stomping from the crowd brought Big Brother out again and they did an encore of "Piece of My Heart." The next time I saw Janis was three years later in 1970 at an annual Hell's Angels' party. It was held in San Rafael across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin. The place was called Pepperland (formerly the Citadel); it was basically a ballroom that was attached to a motel. It had a capacity of about 2,000 that soon filled up with wall-to-wall people. I was there as the manager of my band Gold that really lucked out getting on this huge bill. The lineup was Janis Joplin headlining with Big Brother and Full Tilt Boogie. Third bill was Gold, and Loose Gravel was the opening act. At the time I was a 28-year-old Dean of Boy's working at Presidio Junior High in the Richmond District of San Francisco. I was excited about this event and met the band members at Pepperland after driving over there directly after work. When I arrived I stashed my tie and sport coat in the trunk of the car and put on my cowboy hat. It was surreal seeing the marquee listing Janis/Big Brother, Main Squeeze and Gold. Loose Gravel was not listed. The marquee had mistakenly listed Main Squeeze, a band she had briefly experimented with next to Big Brother when it should have said Full Tilt Boogie, but Janis wanted to surprise everyone. I went straight to the backstage dressing room. I had an incredible rush when I saw that we were in the same room with all the Big Brother members: Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, James Gurley, Dave Getz and Janis. Film star Michael J. Pollard (Bonnie and Clyde) was there and big time record producer Albert Grossman from LA was there. I also saw members of Full Tilt Boogie, a band that Janis had hand picked herself to record the yet to be released Pearl LP. The tension between the new and old bands was astounding. This gig was historic because it was to be the last time Janis would ever perform with Big Brother, and it was her first ever-public appearance with Full Tilt. Soon a huge buffalo sized Hell's Angel, the backstage manager, came in the room and blurted out, "Hey Gold, get your asses on stage you have one minute." I walked out to the floor to get a handle on what was going on. Loose Gravel, a serious biker band, was finishing up their set with the heaviest riffs I had ever heard at that point in my life -- or at least it seemed that way. Loose Gravel, was led by Mike Wilhelm who I recognized as a former member of The Charlatans. They were red hot and shooting steam. I saw one Angel, with a far away look in his eyes, cracking a long black bullwhip for no apparent reason -- CRAAAAAAAAAAAK. Then another Angel appeared from across the room and he was also cracking a whip. The crowd just made space for them to crack those whips. I quickly went back to the band room again, lit a Kool and tried to look cool, calm and collected. I tried to tell Dennis about the guys with the whips but he just stared straight ahead with big eyes and said nothing. A few hours earlier I had been holding detention at the school -- I kept thinking about school. Moose, yet another massively sized Hell's Angel and the San Francisco chapter president, came back to reassure us that everything was just fine. Gold had gotten this gig because Moose often came to see the band play at Keystone Korner in North Beach, and he really liked the band. He was also a friend of my co-manager and brother Dennis. Moose had a hand in getting Gold an earlier gig with Malo and Hot Tuna at Longshoreman's Hall the year before at benefit for a clap clinic sponsored by the San Francisco Hell's Angels. "Follow me, lets go -- it's Showtime boys", the backstage manager yelled. Joe Bajza, the lead guitarist of Gold, chugged down what was left of his Colt 45 beer; he then strung his telecaster over his shoulder and headed for the door. Richard Coco, the lead singer, cinched up his tight fitting leather pants and left the room with bass player Chico Moncada, drummer Louis Goursau and conga player Sebastian Nicholson. Showtime took on a whole new meaning. Redheaded Ed Scott, rhythm guitar player for Gold, was determined but seemed a little shaky and pale as he pointed at with me his Gibson guitar. "Hey man, I ain't going out there unless you come with me." I had no choice but to go, because my options were to stay in a room full of Hell's Angels, or to join an audience filled with hordes of Angels and some them cracking bullwhips. As we walked into the jammed packed dance floor towards the stage I noticed a large sign that said, "Check Guns Here." I suddenly realized that I had to go to work at the school the next day. I was in charge of discipline. I don't know why I remembered that; it just came into my mind for no apparent reason. When we got to the stage it was packed solid with all the equipment of the four bands playing. I positioned myself on top of a speaker amplifier just slightly behind a curtain, and I had the best seat in the house for the show that unfolded during the next three hours.
Gold played like they were possessed and they were very well received. During the last Gold tune "Season of the Witch" Janis and Big Brother appeared back stage. Gold had played a very loud and powerful set -- they had to. Just as they were leaving the stage Janis yelled to Coco who was holding a cowbell to stay put. She shouted, "Hey man, play some Latin on that cowbell will ya." Well what could Coco do? -- he played some Latin. Soon Janis and Coco were dancing all over the stage bumping asses in the process while Peter Albin started to lay down those wavery and wicked Big Brother bass riffs. During the first number a naked woman, jumped up on stage and started dancing around; then a naked man appeared out of nowhere, he jumped on top of her and all eyes shifted to them. Janis and Peter Albin went over to them and just stopped and looked. The man suddenly got up and jumped off the stage; then Janis gently told her to get off the stage. The woman quickly jumped back into the audience and started dancing by herself, seemingly oblivious to the thousands of Hell's Angels all around her. Strange things always happen at Hell's Angels parties. I observed that there were other naked people in the audience but no one seemed to notice. The smell of weed suddenly became overpowering. Big Brother then stepped up for what would be their final public set with Janis. Janis had a crew of women back stage who attended her during the set like handmaidens to a queen. After each tune or during a long James Gurley solo, Janis would skirt behind an amplifier and take big gulps from a bottle of whiskey handed to her by one of her girls while others wiped the sweat off her brow. She polished off an entire bottle of Southern Comfort and smoked several cigarettes during the set, and it didn't seem to faze her a bit. She seemed totally focused. The band concluded with Janis wailing on "Down on Me" to the roars of the frenzied and totally stoned Angels. Janis always put on an extremely high energy and vigorous performance that you had to see to believe. Finally, the highlight of the evening began with Janis introducing the members of her new band Full Tilt Boogie. John Till, Richard Bell, Ken Pearson, Clark Pearson, and Brad Campbell all stepped out. "Sometimes I call them "Pearl Bailey," she said. The audience went wild in Pepperland as the band played every tune from the forthcoming "Pearl" album note for note. As the grand finale came, and the set ended, Janis simply passed out and fell hard over Gold's drum set knocking them all over the stage -- she appeared to be out cold. Some have said a Hell's Angel hit her over the head with a beer bottle, but I did not see that. A cymbal landed out in the crowd. Suddenly three very muscular Hell's Angels jumped up on stage and picked up her limp body high over their heads as if she were a wounded Viking. Janis' head was back and she was slack jawed. One of the Angels grabbed the microphone and bellowed, "All right you fuckers, let's hear it for Janis Joplin." When Janis awoke backstage she asked some people in the room if she had done ok with the performance then she started crying because she couldn't remember what happened. She did a lot better than ok, she knocked the audience out -- tough to do at an Angel's party. They had carried her off the stage while the huge crowd thundered applause yelling and screaming Janis, Janis, and Janis over and over. The screaming and yelling for Janis went on for a long time. She had given what may have been her greatest performance ever even surpassing her awesome performance in the Monterey Pop movie. The gig was finally over; I was completely dumfounded by the spectacle and totally speechless. Janis was found dead in a hotel room a few months after the Hell's Angels party. She was only 27 -- apparently the drugs and the booze had just killed her. Throughout her intense substance abuse, her raw talent was always obvious. Many of the musicians at that time had a serious run in with the drug scene and it led to the demise of many of them. Joe knew about drugs too but he avoided heroin and the life-style he viewed that was associated with it. He said, "The Monterey Pop Festival in '67 was the peak of my psychedelic period. I took STP the day before we played, and I was really stoned out. Monterey Pop was the end of childhood for a lot of Bay Area bands. After Monterey, the big time record industry really hit San Francisco. The music scene made the cover of Time magazine and the whole business became commercial." Joe said, "Two years after the Monterey Pop Festival, Janis performed at Woodstock. I thought she was trying too hard. She made the same mistake The Fish had made earlier when we played exhausted. I have this lingering memory of Janis at Woodstock. She looked bad, she was unhealthy looking and she was just plain angry. When Janis was together, she was really nice, but when she got junked she could be not so nice to be around. Janis could be a regular person whenever she felt like it. She was friendly but had a quick temper that got her into a lot of fights. She was ambitious, loved her career, and loved her dog George; she was a great singer and performer and I miss her." Joe wrote a song for her called Janis that he still performs to this day. JANIS
CHAPTER 6: COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH
The band was started as just Joe and his friend Barry Melton who played lead guitar. The group was first known as the Instant Action Jug Band, before the name was changed. Throughout the life of the band, many members came and went, but Joe and Barry were constant. Keyboarder David Cohen, Gary "Chicken" Hirsh, the drummer, and Bruce Barthol on bass were all longtime members and contributors to the band. Several other musicians including Dave Getz, Peter Albin, Mark Kapner, Doug Metzner and Greg Dewey played off and on with Joe and Barry as members of The Fish.
As was true for many bands, the late 60's proved to be a golden age for Country Joe and The Fish.
The anti-war movement was really heating up as Country Joe and The Fish played their first gigs around the Bay Area.
In 1967 Country Joe and The Fish had been signed by Vanguard Records and soon recorded "Electric Music For the Mind and Body" which was one of the first "psychedelic" records. Denson said, " At the time the two big Bay Area venues were the Avalon Ballroom, run by Chet Helms, and the Fillmore with Bill Graham. The Avalon was hipper, the Fillmore paid better. Country Joe and The Fish were a bit marginal at both. We didn't quite have the commercial edge of the Jefferson Airplane, which gave Bill some qualms about hiring us often, and Helms felt that our politics were not hippie enough. Or perhaps it is better to say that having politics wasn't hippie. I do recall negotiating a record contract in the upstairs lobby of the Avalon while on acid, which seemed pretty hippie to me. The contract fell through however." When the Vanguard LP was finally ready for release Denson talked them into doing a release party at the Fillmore. The label hired the hall and booked Big Brother and the Holding Company and another band to play. They invited all the industry people, record store buyers and members of the media to come. Then they printed up invitation cards and handed them out in the Haight Ashbury. Thousands of people showed up -- way too many to get into the hall. This event was a very big success and really put the band on the map. Denson said, " This showed that lots of people really wanted to hear the band's music." By 1967 and 1968 Country Joe and The Fish was playing regularly at Fillmore West in San Francisco and Fillmore East in New York City. Thousands of Rock and Roll fans stood in long lines to get into the shows. Serious psychedelic fans timed their Saturday night acid trip to peak during The Fish set. In the early days, Country Joe and The Fish headlined over some newcomers and relative unknowns like the new group Led Zeppelin.
Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine Joe wrote the song "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" in the summer of 1965. He was living in a flat with his first wife Kathe. " We had just come up to the Bay Area a few months before from Southern California. One day, a woman named Nina Serrano came to my place and asked me to write music for an anti-Vietnam War play opening at the UC Berkeley and San Francisco State campuses," Joe said. "I started working right away and wrote 'Who am I' in three days."
Who Am I ?"After I finished the last verse to 'Who Am I,' I sat back in my chair relaxing and strummed some chords. "I started writing 1-2-3 what are we fighting for? and so on, and in about 30 minutes, I finished the song -- the melody and lyrics just seemed to flow out of me." A Vietnam vet named Richard Hughes provides this memory he has of hearing the "Fixin to Die Rag" while he was in Vietnam. "During the War the Army used to have psych-ops helo's. They would fly out at night and drop flyers and broadcast propaganda over VC positions. These things were noisy! They could be heard for miles -- loud speakers on the order of 40,000 Watts. When returning back over American positions they sometimes changed the record on more than one occassion I heard the "Viet Nam Rag" from those loudspeakers perhaps a mile away." James Sterba writing about Marines in Vietnam for the New York Times on July 14,1969 said, "The lack of revelry here is most apparant at night. From inside the dusty tents comes quiet talk. There is no frolicking, and except for a few morbid jokes, little humor. Artillery guns boom explosives out of the camp throughout the night disturbing precious sleep. From a tape recorder in one bunker, came psychedelic sound seemingly more appropriate to Greenwich Village that to Vandegrift Combat Base: And its one , two, three, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam... The song by the rock'n'roll group called Country Joe and The Fish is popular here. The only way to keep from blowing your mind here is to joke about death, said a member of the First Battalion. The nickname of the battalion is the Walking Dead. "Worrying about dying is how guys get killed out here," said another.
I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die RagThe late days of the 60's were the most frantic for The Fish. I went to a 1968 Bill Graham Fillmore concert in San Francisco that headlined Country Joe and The Fish, Steppenwolf and a local band called The Flamin' Groovies. The hall was packed like sardines and the smell of weed and incense was unmistakable. Giant red and black balloons were flying all over the ballroom. A paisley patterned light show was shimmering on the wall behind the stage -- a kind of pulsating purple glow appeared on and off. A topless woman in a long hippie style skirt took up a strategic position right in front of the massive public address system. Someone threw a large bouquet of flowers on to the stage. I was totally stoned from the dope smoke, and the whole scene was freaky -- surreal. Steppenwolf in a wild fury shook the house. John Kay and his group were riding high on their smash hits "Born to be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride," and they kicked ass. Soon it was time for the headliner to appear. Country Joe and The Fish attacked the stage at midnight to a heavy surge of audience energy. Joe grabbed the microphone cord and swung it around like a soul singer. Chicken Hirsh laid down a steady and soul-style drum beat, then Barry Melton stepped forward and belted out in his raspy voice, " we want to dedicate this song to L.B.J." The band broke out into Super bird, and the audience went crazy. SuperbirdThe next song Joe dedicated to Mr. James Brown. With "Rock and Soul", Joe tried to prove that rock music has soul too if you can "dig it." Rock and Soul Music The band's frantic energy climaxed as the audience sang along with Joe the lyrics to "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag". On my way out the door I overheard three very drunk Marines in uniform discussing the show they had just witnessed. "I thought there was suppose to be a dance here with some girls," said a big-ass shorthaired Marine. In various degrees of shock, they stumbled back onto Fillmore Street looking for action. The next time I saw Country Joe and The Fish perform was in 1969 on the David Frost TV Show. The band played "Fixin' To Die" during prime time to a national audience. A week later, Frost got a sack full of letters condemning him for having a "sick, unpatriotic" act on his show. Frost passed the letters to Joe. December 20, 1969Joe always felt that his song was misunderstood. The letter writers and thousands of others didn't realize that the song they hated so badly really attempted to address the horror of war with dark sarcastic humor known by soldiers everywhere as "GI Humor." GI humor is a way people have of bitching in a way that will not get them in trouble, and that also keeps them from insanity that can be experienced during war. Today America has a volunteer military, but during the Vietnam War, many people joined because they thought it was the right thing to do. It was patriotic. But, far more people were drafted. A great number of others in trouble with the law were given a choice of going into the military or going to jail. It was kind of government blackmail. Many chose to leave the USA and head for places like Canada. During the war some people were drafted into the Marine Corps, which was one service that seldom drafted (it did during the end of WWII especially after losing so many men at Iwo Jima). Few people realized that the casualty rate for Marines was actually higher in Vietnam than in World War II. As it turned out over 58,000 American GI's never came back home from a war we ended up pulling out from and losing. Country Joe and The Fish had been booked to appear on the Ed Sullivan show earlier in the year in 1969, but their appearance was suddenly cancelled even though they were paid in advance. They did appear on Johnny Carson and Joe appeared on Hugh Hefner's "Playboy after Dark" a very popular late night TV show. On the Hefner show it concluded with Joe singing the lyrics to "Fixin' To Die" while plastic go-go dancers boogied up a storm. This was another very bizarre display of 60's weirdness as expressed in the media. 1969 was a big year for Country Joe and The Fish. At Woodstock they were added to the program at the last minute, it was a toss up between them and Jethro Tull, and The Fish got the nod as Tull wanted to be paid big bucks in front. The Fish do not appear listed on the official poster. "We got $2500 bucks, and I flew out a day early 'cause I wanted to watch the show, said Joe. I checked into The Holiday Inn near the site that was packed with show people including Janis Joplin. Janis invited me up to her room. It was like old times, we just talked and had a good time. Then she broke out a needle and started shooting up. I hated that shit so I got really pissed and just left." Janis was upset at Joe's reaction, and tried to talk Joe into staying, but Janis' was just too bad off. "I had talked to her girl friend Peggy on the plane out, and I was unhappy to learn that Janis was back on heroin," said Joe. After leaving Janis, Joe went out to get on the chopper to go to the site but it was dark and would not take off as it was unsafe to fly at night there. So Joe stayed in his room that night. The next day Denson arrived with the band. He said, "When we got to the hotel it was so crowded that we couldn't get a room until someone left. Arlo Guthrie was in the room we were to get and we had to wait in the hall until he left. The transportation to the site was in collapse. The band and I went by car and it took hours. We had to drive right through the crowd, with people walking along in front of the car. We had to ask people to move out of the way so we could inch forward." The first day of the show, Joe did not ride with Denson and the band but hitched a ride with a worker who drove him right up there to the stage area. "I went up on the stage and saw all those people, and almost freaked," said Joe. "I sat down and watched Richie Havens sing."
"I started to sing something and no one was paying any attention, so I walked off the stage and asked Belmont if I could do "The F Cheer," said Joe. Belmont said to go for it. "No one is paying attention anyway," so Joe walked back out there and yelled, "Gimme an F." The entire crowd stopped talking, looked up at Joe and yelled "U." It just accelerated from there. After the "F" Cheer Joe went right into "I-Feel- Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die" Rag. According to Joe, "I didn't know they were filming me." Joe was the only performer to sing twice -- once solo and once with the band. A few months later Joe saw the footage and was "blown away." "When we recorded the "I-Feel-Like-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" for Vanguard Records, I decided to put the "F Cheer" at the front of the song. We actually spelled out FISH, but in the summer of '69 at the Shaefer Beer Festival in New York City we said, "let's change The Fish cheer to The Fuck cheer." Joe said, "So The Fuck cheer was born, and the people loved it -- so we just kept it in the act. The only problem was, the Shaefer Beer people banned us from future beer fests, and the band was cancelled from a scheduled appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. We figured fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," said Joe. I was able to catch up with both Barry Melton and David Cohen who have fond, but often sordid, memories of the Fish days. Barry said, "I remember our first Country Joe and The Fish tour the best. Joe and me as a duo, touring Northwest Colleges. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sponsored the first tour. We had a lot of fun on that tour. As I get older I remember the good times." Joe said, "Barry was 18 at the time and I was 23 and Barry could score weed in any town in a matter of minutes." Joe went on, "Once up in Oregon at Reed College we took some acid and went out into the forest. Barry fell over a log and into a creek. We started laughing till we had tears in our eyes, then we started talking to the little forest people who lived under the rocks." "People think that playing in a band is glamorous," said Cohen. "But, when someone asks me about it, I usually say we were on the plane, then in a car, then in a hotel room, then the car, then the airplane… and on and on. But, it was tremendous fun, and I loved it." To sum up David's view on the subject, "the music made it all worthwhile," he said.
The Fish formed by accident. "We just sort of were in the same place at the same time," Barry said. "The first time we played together was at the 1965 Berkeley Folk Festival. We were on the steps of the Student Union, playing with other musicians who typically gathered on the periphery of folk festivals of the early 60's." Barry said, " Of the first two songs recorded by Country Joe and The Fish one variation featured Joe and me on "Superbird" and the other featured Joe, me, Bob Steel, Cavel Bass, Carl Schrager, and Mike Beardslee on "Fixin-to-Die Rag." Our first amplified gig featured me on electric and acoustic guitar, Richard Saunders on bass and Joe on acoustic guitar. Richard stopped playing with us around the time we started playing electric music." The group went on to the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. The Monterey Pop movie was shot on a shoestring. But, that Festival contained the hope, promise and idealism of the era. Two years later, by the time of the Woodstock movie, much of what went wrong with the Sixties became obvious. Both David and Barry wrote for The Fish. Barry wrote, "Sing, Sing, Sing", "The Love Machine" and "Doctor of Electricity". David wrote most of "Rock and Soul Music", "Thursday" and "Eastern Jam". "Ninety-nine percent of the really good songs were written by Joe," said David. The end of the sixties marked the end for the most part of Country Joe and The Fish. The breakup came in 1970, about the time the Woodstock movie came out. At the time of Woodstock, The Fish was touring extensively with "sidemen" Mark Kapner on Keyboards, Doug Meltzer on bass and Greg Dewey on drums. The band was successful with the CJ Fish LP, and the movie starring Don Johnson, Zachariah, featuring Joe and the Fish as a band of outlaws, was released. Even this success wasn't enough. David felt that the band broke up partly because they were no longer playing the really beautiful pieces that Joe wrote. "Instead, we played extended jams loosely based on some of the songs, and the music had degenerated to a point that I was no longer enjoying playing it much myself." David still gigs regularly in New York and with Joe on occasion. In November of 2000 they performed together on the East Coast and in Washington State. Cohen is still close to Bruce Barthol and he talks to "Chicken" Hirsh once in a while. Barry continues to perform as Barry "The Fish" Melton with musicians like Peter Albin and communicates regularly with "ED" Denson and Bill Belmont who was the road manager during the glory years. Joe tried to reform the old band several times but it never happened. Barry and David are both skeptical about the band ever reforming. There have been several versions of Country Joe and The Fish that have evolved, even one version without Joe called The Psychedelic Fish that toured very briefly after Joe left in 1970. A reunion attempt made in 1994 at the Fillmore in San Francisco ended up in shambles. The gig was highly advertised and was well attended as many fans of Country Joe and The Fish came out hoping to see a great show. What actually happened was that that Barry refused to play with Joe and the group. He came out first and did a 20 minute solo acoustic set walked off and left the building. The friday before the gig Barry passed out literature saying he was not allowed to play at the reunion - it is unclear why Barry did this. Joe and the band did their set without Barry. This disaster of a gig really upset Bill Graham and totally soured Joe on trying to do another reunion. David Cohen said, "The closest we came to actually reforming was in December of 2000 when Joe, me and "Chicken" were suppose to play together in Seattle with the Bevis Frond band. At the last minute "Chicken" just chickened out." Joe and David went on as a duo and both had fun so much in fact that they continue to appear from time to time as the Dynamic Duo around the country. David gets part of the credit for making Country Joe and The Fish the historic psychedelic band it became -- his performance on "Electric Music for the Mind and Body" speaks for itself. His haunting organ and keyboard playing together with Barry's lead guitar really created a most unusual sound. In June of 2001 Joe, David, Bruce Barthol, and Barry Melton found themselves all together at a three-day nostalgic event in Monterey called "Monterey Pop Revisited." The History and Arts Commission of Monterey put on the event. The History and Arts people maintained that the Monterey Pop Festival was a historic event that needed to be acknowledged as such. Not only did 50,000 wild hippies flock peacefully to the quiet town of Monterey in 1967 but also, it was a rare and highly eclectic music festival unseen before this time. Putting Ravi Shankar on the same bill with the Mama's and the Papa's was just unheard of outside of Bill Graham's selections for his shows at the Fillmore.
 Left, Monterey Pop Revisited poster. Top right, panel discussion with Bruce Barthol, Barry Melton, and Jorma Kaukonen. Bottom right, Country Joe, David Cohen, Mark Naftalin, and Bruce Barthol. Photos by Ron Cabral. Joe, David and former Butterfield/Bloomfield/Electric Flag keyboardist Mark Naftalin played the opening night party on June 15, 2001 at the Monterey Maritime Museum that featured a photo and art display of highlights from the 1967 Festival. Joe wore a white helmet like he did in 1967 and played some classic FISH tunes like: "Section 43", "Porpoise Mouth", "Sweet Martha Lorraine", "Janis", "Who am I", and "Fixin to Die Rag." Monterey Pop helped launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Otis Redding, Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and The Fish. The Monterey Pop movie says it all and it was shown during the weekend. The 75-year-old filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker was there to explain how he made the film and why he stressed the incredible performances of Ravi Shankar, Country Joe and The Fish and Janis in the film. The next night Barry, Bruce and David played together at a Monterey club on Cannery Row called Sly McFly's. On Sunday Joe joined Barry and David who played at the Monterey Fairgrounds along with Mark Naftalin. Joining them were Roy Blumenfeld and Andy Kulberg from The Blues Project. The weekend turned out to be a sort of Country Joe and The Fish weekend in Monterey. This was the first time in years that so many original Country Joe and The Fish members were together in one place. Is there a chance for a real Country Joe and The Fish reunion someday? Well it almost happened in Monterey, not so long ago, and of course anything is possible. With many groups from the 60's reforming and touring in 2002 like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Canned Heat, It's A Beautiful Day, Iron Butterfly, Hot Tuna (Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady), Sons of Champlin, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Steve Miller to name just a few - some great concerts could be on the horizon. All of these musicians from the old groups that are reforming for that one last tour are all well over 50 and many at or near 60. How long can they keep playing? Who knows? To some seeing the old musicians back on stage would be like seeing baseball stars like Yogi Berra or Willie Mays back in the line up with the Yankees and Giants…. It would be great to see them play again but we would be horrified at what the reality would be. Maybe that is why Grace Slick retired. Maybe she could have hung in for a little longer. Carlos Santana is not slowing down with age he seems to be getting better. Musicians can play well into their 80's. In the summer of 2000 I saw Les Paul who is over 80 performing with his trio at the Iridium in New York City. Les could still make "Maria Elena" sound heavenly on his guitar. He did say during the breaks that he had to go downstairs and take a little nap. He would disappear for a while and come back up and continue to play. Look at all the terrific Jazz and Dixieland musicians in New Orleans who are way past retirement age and they can still wail. Picture Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Jorma Kaukonen, and Country Joe at 70 or older. Will they still be making music? My guess is yes and they will all probably make the cover of Modern Maturity. Despite an early end to the band Country Joe and The Fish, Joe continues to perform as Country Joe, and Barry as Barry "The Fish" Melton. Finding himself without a band Joe began his solo career in 1970. He founded another band briefly in 1972 called The All-Star Band, but soon after a highly expensive European tour that almost caused a bankruptcy he disbanded it and went on to refine his solo career. The All-Star Band did manage to record the highly acclaimed LP "Paris Sessions" before breaking up. Joe has reunited with Barry on occasion as Country Joe and The Fish even as late as the early 1990's. Country Joe and The Fish were always just Joe and Barry and whoever else they wanted to have in the band. Barry once suggested to Joe that maybe they could drag out the Country Joe and The Fish bit from time to time for ceremonial events and for mutually agreeable charitable causes. Joe has however, managed to survive as a solo and recording artist for over 30 years no matter what has happened to Country Joe and The Fish. Joe recorded an LP called Eat Flowers and Kiss Babies with a band from Europe called Bevis Frond that can recreate the sound of early Country Joe and The Fish. Barry plays in clubs regularly mainly in Northern California and can also be found practicing law at the Yolo County Public Defender's Office in Woodland, California. "ED" Denson the original manager of Country Joe and The Fish has also passed the Bar and practices in rural Northern California. Will Country Joe and The Fish reform in some form if they are ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Count on it. Maybe then it will happen.
My classroom was downstairs and it was really just a little addition put together with 2 by 4's and plywood. It was used mainly as a place for the school rock band to practice in. There was a set of drums and a piano in the room. Once in a while Joe would come down there and give some guitar lessons mainly to my classroom assistant Ed Dee and a few students. Ed was teaching guitar to at least 12 students every day. Ed also was sitting in on Joe's song writing class. The school hired former Lemon Piper, Mike Perroti, a drummer with Gold, to teach percussion. On occasion some members of Gold like Robin Sinclair, guitarist Ed Scott and percussionist Percy "Sebastian" Nicholson came by the school to jam with students. Robin was an outstanding vocalist who prior to joining Gold had recorded two albums for Cadet Concept a branch of Chess Records. The musical atmosphere around the school was really starting to pick up. Besides Ed Dee, there were several very good student guitar players enrolled in Opportunity High. One was a student named Abel Zarate who I met at the old Opportunity High on Mission St., he later played guitar in a band called Malo. Malo was George Santana's band, and he is the brother of Carlos Santana. Malo went on to have some top 40 hits, "Suavecito" being one. Once Joe Bajza the lead guitar player of Gold came to the school and jammed a little with Zarate. Bajza was very amazed and somewhat blown away that a high school kid could play so well. Another student guitar player was Robert Graves, a totally awesome lead guitarist. Graves had a gigantic professional sound and had very advanced technique -- I never knew what became of him. Once before, Zarate had asked my brother Dennis and me if we would manage a band he was with then called Brown Sugar. Well, we were not really interested in managing that band but felt that maybe we could get them a gig or two to play with Gold. After about a week Abel and his drummer came over the house unexpectedly and told us they needed $5,000.00 in a hurry to buy some new equipment. It seemed that the garage they used on Florida Street had been broken into and all their equipment had been stolen. Needless to say we had to terminate our very brief relationship. I think Zarate went on to have a fairly successful career in music. After six months of teaching at the school some members of the School Newspaper, asked Joe for an interview. Joe agreed and here is some of that interview. An Interview with Country Joe  T O P
Both Albin and Getz were original members of Big Brother - the band that launched the meteoric career of Janis Joplin. They were the same two musicians that played at California Hall during the first Albatross Productions gig back in 1967. I had also run across them during Janis Joplin's last performance with Big Brother and the Holding Company at a Hell's Angel's party at Pepperland in Marin County in 1970. Gold was also on that bill. Janis climaxed that night by also appearing for the first time with her new band Full-Tilt Boogie -- the band on her Pearl album, but that is a whole other story. Joe introduced me to the trumpet player he was trying out, a guy named Steve Carvalho, and to the sax and flute player Tucky Bailey. He also introduced me to Dorothy Moscowitz who played outstanding keyboards. "Any charts", I asked? Steve said, "Huh, no charts ya just got to play, and try and fill any holes, just follow some of my patterns." Now my heart was really pounding, neither Steve nor I had ever heard this particular band play before and we were talking about filling holes. I knew I would have to play like never before, just let it come out. Sometimes jazz and rock musicians, poets, painters and other artists experience a a sort of strange and mystical energy that enters their body during a performance and very creative things start to happen - must be the phenomena called The Muse. I was hoping The Muse would guide me and maybe hop on my shoulder for at least the next four nights. I thought back to the time I met a monster guitar player (I think it was Howard Leese) at the 1970 Vortex festival at Oregon's McIver State Park near Portland. He was playing an incredible, huge, Jimi Hendrix on acid like solo during a (PA) - public address system check. Impressed at how well he played I asked him point blank how he did that. He said, "Well I just feel something in me and my entire body seem to know what to do. I am not aware that I am controlling my hands or fingers, sometimes I actually am not even aware of my body at all while playing -- it is like I have become a marionette and someone is pulling the strings." Joe passed out the order of tunes and said, "let's go through the entire set non-stop -- one and two and hit it." Then all eleven musicians came to life as one and the set was on. Fortunately for me I had heard most of Joe's tunes before and I had a pretty good ear. At first it was a very strange feeling for me to be on that stage, but as we went through each tune it felt better and better. At times I lost the key but my good ear helped me out. Some of the tunes played that night were: "Fantasy", "Sweet Lorraine", "Guantanamera", "Fix'in to Die Rag" -- Dixieland style, "Janis", "On the Road Again", "Hold on It's Coming", and some Bill Withers tunes like "Use me Up." At 9:00 p.m. the set was repeated as the four-hour performance was set to start then. At 1:00 a.m. Joe came over to Steve and I and said, "Ok, can you guys come back tomorrow night and do this again?" I could not believe this whole thing had taken place -- I thought I was dreaming, but I wasn't. Famous jazz singer and San Francisco Chronicle music critic Jon Hendrix wrote a review on the Mandrake's gig. Here are some brief excerpts from the review. "COUNTRY JOE'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAND"Well I played the entire 4-night stand and will always regard it as the highlight of my personal trombone playing, thanks to Joe. I often thought about this and realized I had played in a band with members of Big Brother and the Holding Company and Country Joe and Fish. It was like if I had been given a chance to play in four games on a big league baseball team with some major league all-stars. It was as if I was trapped inside a fantasy, but it wasn't a fantasy at all. Later on during my long career with the San Francisco Schools I would often play trombone or drums at assemblies with ad hoc bands created for the faculty talent shows at various schools I worked at. Playing with the All-Stars was a great confidence builder.
Not everything was as rosy as Jon Hendrix had predicted, however, for Joe and The All- Star's. The band cost Joe a huge fortune to take on the road during the year and finances were at an all time low. Soon Joe would have to fire everyone connected with the All-Stars and go solo again. There would be some very hard times ahead.
Midway through the talk, student coordinator, Audrey Stein asked Bill to account for his stated lack of interest in helping new or unknown groups. Graham again gave the "draw" formula and further stated that no one had ever come up with a good solution on how to deal with that. He pointed out that for several years he had an audition night weekly at the Fillmore-West. Some times he would see a good band and help them in some way. Most of the bands that played the audition night did not make it beyond that initial audition. I knew personally about his audition nights at the Fillmore as two bands I managed had played there. He concluded his two-hour talk with a long story about Santana and the Rolling Stones. The kids were riveted by Graham's every word. We all thanked him for giving the talk, and he left in an apparent good mood. I felt that Joe had something up his sleeve about this visit from "Mr. Music Business." I knew Bill Graham from before as Gold had played several gigs for him at both Fillmore-West and at Winterland. At the last gig he called Dennis, my co-manager, and me into his office and said, " Look, I really like the band but you have to get an album going and it has to get steady air play. I am booking third bill bands now that are on the Billboard top 25 list. I really can't book Gold anymore till you get that album out." As it turned out Gold never did get a major record deal and they broke up in late 1973.
Bill was sitting behind a glass partition, which had an old studio "ON THE AIR" sign nailed above it and was yelling furiously into a telephone. We nervously waited for 15 minutes while he continued to yell. Finally a stern and very business like looking secretary led us into his inner office. There were pictures of several rock stars on the wall. Graham seemed to be in a mellow mood as Ed Dee handed him our formal proposal. He started to read the three-page proposal, which asked him to take a position on the community advisory board of Opportunity 2 High and also agree to become music and general arts consultant and or volunteer teacher to the school. The proposal went on to suggest that a new concept called "Summerland" be created. Summerland would be like a minor league arena for up-and-coming bands not yet ready to play in the major league arenas. That students and music staff from Opportunity would operate and manage Summerland with help from Bill Graham's Presents. The proposal pointed out that students enrolled in the mini-course called The Music Business in Theory and Practice would earn high school credits in a variety of areas. Also all students working on the Summerland project would earn $1.75 per hour, which would qualify them for work experience, credits applicable towards their high school diplomas. We proposed that Bimbo's 365 Club in North Beach be the site for Summerland and that 10 weekly, Friday and Saturday night dance concerts be presented. It was further stated that each band wanting to play at Summerland would have to be selected by a student booking committee unless recommended by Bill. Ideally, each show should contain one well-known group or artist, a local band with demonstrated draw ability and two new groups. A partial band list of groups who could make bills for some of the first Summerland shows are as follows:
At this point, Graham put the papers down and stared out the window for a long time. "Why me?" he asked. Ed Dee stepped up, and said that Graham was by far the most qualified man in the community to sponsor such a project. After he finished, Bill looked at Ed silently staring at him for a couple of heartbeats. He then quickly said, "look here's the deal if you could go out and get someone the caliber of Jerry Garcia, Paul Kantner, John Fogarty, or Carlos Santana I might make it happen." Bill ignored our blank stares and continued, "What if I told you I was going to headline Joe Stein at the Cow Palace next Friday night? -- What would you think?" Claire asked, "Who's Joe Stein?" "Exactly", Bill said, "He's a nobody, and nobody would pay to come and see him -- do you get what I am saying." He then said 10 concerts were too much and that four might be more realistic and that we would have to book all the shows without his help. He ended the meeting by offering us "a lot of luck" and that he would be in touch. He had given a green light of sorts, but I don't think he really expected a bunch of high school kids to be able to pull any big names into the picture. We went back to the school for a pow-wow. Bill would not put up any money unless we came up with a show we booked ourselves that had the kind of names that Bill was used to seeing. This all seemed like an impossible task for a high school teacher and a bunch of students. Claire Tomlinson said she would personally go after the Grateful Dead and she knew how to reach them. Others went after Jefferson Airplane and Santana. In the meantime I went over to see Bimbo about reserving some dates for these possible shows. Bimbo said, "I can give you a Friday night May 25th if you give me a $500.00 deposit." I asked him to hold that date and that I would let him know within two or three days -- he only did this because he knew Bill Graham might be involved. Two days later Tomlinson was jumping up and down while she told us she did not get the Grateful Dead, but got Jerry Garcia instead. Garcia agreed to do it only if he was billed as part of Old and In the Way a bluegrass group made up of himself, David Grisman, John Kahn, and Peter Rowan. Claire was on a roll she even booked the second bill group the Rowan Brothers. I booked the two new and local groups the Sufi Choir a 23-member singing and instrumental group who I had heard once before at a Dead concert at Winterland. The other group had just returned from a tour in India and was called Seymour Light, the lead guitar player once played with Osceola, a very good band that had appeared on bills with Gold in San Francisco and at the 1970 Vortex Festival in Oregon. Tomlinson called Bill, and he said to go for it. The check was in the mail, and it was really happening. Claire called Joe who was performing in New York City to tell him that his idea had taken hold. Immediately thirty students were signed up to be on the work crew. A red business phone was installed in my classroom, which became the operations office for the new mini course. I asked Dave Pallavicini, an old friend I had met in elementary school, to make the Summerland poster. We wanted 1000 printed and 10,000 handbills. There was a circus-like atmosphere at the school. Most of the other teachers were very curious about all the comings and goings but didn't really understand that we were now working with Bill Graham -- it was totally unbelievable and quite bizarre. Just before Joe left for New York, we'd had an advertising meeting at the school, and he suggested that because Summerland was really out to help the new and unknown groups that the poster should have the little band on top and the headliner at the bottom. It made sense considering the idea for Summerland. I called Pallavicini and told him to make the poster accordingly; he was just starting to design it so he had no problem setting it up with Seymour Light at the top. Within a few days the posters were out on the streets and were being put up in storefronts and on telephone poles in places like the Haight, Berkeley, North Beach, and San Francisco State. An army of students passed out the handbills, which were miniature posters, to places all over town. As the media started to pick up on Summerland good things started to happen. Many radio and TV stations put out advertising as public affairs announcements, which were free, and various newspapers wrote pieces on Summerland.
Things were heating up as opening night drew close. Class began at 7:45 p.m. with the opening of the doors at Bimbo's. Three hundred people lined up to buy tickets, and they made their way in slowly. Students were selling tickets inside the ticket booth, others took tickets at the door, some students were security guards, some were stage crew, others equipment handlers. Joe's idea was a reality thanks to a bunch of so called "disenfranchised" kids from Opportunity. The first band started to play. Garcia, Sam Cutler, and Owsley Stanley arrived early during the Sufi Choir set and were escorted back stage to their guestrooms by students on the stage crew.
Jerry then walked over and spoke to Ramana Rappold the student who was selected to be the student emcee for Garcia. Ramana, a major Dead Head, calmly went up on stage at midnight and introduced Jerry and Old and In the Way to a crowd that had grown to more than 500. Old and In the Way played a great set, and the crowd applauded nicely. Most of the students working and on staff at Bimbo's were extremely happy to be part of something so unreal and yet so real -- they had made history of a sort. The next day the reality of the Music Business in Theory and Practice hit home in a big way. The red phone rang again it was Bill. He came right to the point. " Look I am losing big money on this project. You didn't do so well at the box office and you had Jerry Garcia. You will have to sell twice as many tickets at the next show or I will pull out." I was shaken and from then on began to dread the ring of the red phone. I called a meeting of the entire Summerland staff and told them what Bill had said. I really wished Joe had been around at this time. Claire Tomlinson really demonstrated how powerful a committed student could be when given an unlimited learning opportunity. She had already learned how to be a booking agent and had even gotten some prison gigs like San Quentin lined up for Country Joe and the All-Star band. She now was going after bigger fish. In order to try and save Summerland's future she called Joe at his hotel in New York City and explained what was going on. She then laid a heavy request on Joe. She asked him to reform Country Joe and The Fish for the second Summerland show set for June 16th. Joe thought hard about that request. He did have Barry Melton back with him at the time, and he decided to give Claire a very serious assignment over the phone. He asked her to try and pull the other Fish members together. If she could do that he would do the gig with the reformed group. Claire tried very hard to put the Fish back together for Joe and Summerland, but the band members were all over the place and she just wasn't able to make it happen. There was also the problem that Country Joe and The Fish had so many different former members she really wasn't sure which ones to call. So, Claire and the booking committee put together a second show quickly as Bimbo had already been paid. The next show was to headline local jazz great John Handy. Also on the bill were Butch Wax and the Glasspacks, Norman "Spirt in the Sky" Greenbaum, and Crossfire. The show was a real variety show featuring jazz, 50's, and 70's rock with a top 40 hit artist Norman Greenbaum thrown in. I thought it would be terrific. Bill told me it seemed iffy but he let the Summerland advertising go out through his agency. Everything seemed set, but one factor I hadn't counted on was 18-year-old naked ambition. Claire suddenly started acting like a top sergeant. She was trying to run everything by her self. She started sounding like Bill about draw, draw, and draw. I had given the students every opportunity to take this project from start to finish, but things started to get out of hand. Before anyone knew it, just days before the event, on her own, Clair had called Bill and cancelled the show. I found out the hard way. The red phone rang. It was Bill. My palms began to sweat. "I am gonna come over there and kill you and whoever else I need to. Number one get my fucking deposit back from Bimbo, and I'm through with you people. No more Summerland -- it's over." The intensity in his voice melted the phone in my hand. I was getting familiar with hearing an angry Bill Graham, but not like I just had. (My memory of this phone call was revived for me years later after I saw Graham in the 1991 film called Bugsy starring Warren Beatty and Annett Bening. In it he gives a stunning portrayal of a New York mobster - he sounded like that on the phone.) I wondered for a moment if I would ever work in this town again, although I realized he couldn't take my teaching job. Then Bill slammed the phone down in a way that made me believe that he would need a new one. I tried to get the deposit back from Bimbo but he rightfully said no, so I took the news back to school. The staff suggested that we hold a graduation party at Bimbo's on the night of June 16th and we did just that. I was able to book Gold and Seymore Light. The only thing we thought we could do next was pass the hat at the Golden Park band stand that was scheduled for that Saturday. I didn't really know if Graham ever broke kneecaps or actually killed anyone, but I didn't want to be a test case. I called Joe, and he told me that he had overdosed on how weird things had gotten with the Summerland deal and having to deal with someone who goes off like Graham does. So it appeared to be over with Bill making a total donation of $2,700.00. I do have to give Joe full credit for making this whole thing with Summerland happen. It was his idea to start with, and he just let it all happen. Joe's creation made many kids happy, we all learned something, and it was sure fun while it lasted. Joe left his volunteer teaching stint after Summerland, and the school changed greatly after his departure. Joe made a difference while he was there and he touched a lot of lives.
Fortunately for me, Graham got tired of trying to wring money out of a bunch of school kids, and I guess breaking my kneecaps would get him nothing. So I never heard anything else about the money or about any other dealings with Bill on this event. I never did figure out how an 18-year-old high school kid, managed to knock heads with the Czar of rock and roll and what got in to her to cancel that second gig at Bimbo's. After Summerland ended I never saw or heard from Claire again; however, I did learn later that she went on to express her talent by booking several gigs for Joe and the ALL-Star Band and other bands into prison gigs at San Quentin, Santa Rita, and Frontera Women's prison -- all this prior to Bread and Roses starting up. She also was a Director for the Mill Valley Film Festival. This did not end my contact with Bill, however, and in fact, several years after Summerland, I ran into him again in 1975. Bill appeared on a school district owned (NPR) radio station called KALW 91.7 fm on a weekly show I produced there called "The Natural High Express." Students from Opportunity and I taped music shows each week that ran on Saturday nights. I read in the paper that Bill was planning to put on a huge benefit to save sports programs in the San Francisco schools, so we invited him to come and tell us about it. I was a little worried that Bill would not accept based on our last meeting but he graciously accepted. I introduced Bill and just gave him the microphone so he could tell the audience why he was doing this. Bill explained that he had pretty much had a position to help people who wanted to raise money for something justifiable and that the money would really help a good cause. Bill said, "Normally if those wanting a benefit could get a name artist to do a show I would help out. This time I really wanted to help the city kids and no one had to ask me. I was sick and tired of driving past ball fields and playgrounds in town and seeing no one playing on them -- what the hell is going on?" At the end of the show he said something few people understood then, he said, "What if I told you I was gonna throw a party and Marlon Brando was gonna be there -- would you come?" We all kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. The school district promised to pipe in the interview to as many city high schools as they could and they advertised it in the district newsletter. Bill announced on our radio show that he was going to put on a special benefit concert called SNACK Sunday at Kezar Stadium (the former home of the San Francisco 49ers) in Golden Gate Park - SNACK stood for San Francisco Needs Athletics, Culture and Kicks. As it turned out, 50,000 fans showed up and Bill donated $200,000 dollars to the beleaguered school sports program. At the sold out concert; Bob Dylan, The Band, Joan Baez, The Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Starship, Neil Young and Santana played one of San Francisco's greatest out-door events ever held. Also appearing at SNACK SUNDAY were several big name sports stars: Willie Mays, John Brodie and Gene Washington of the 49ers, and Track legend Jessie Owens. During a set change, one of Hollywood's greatest actors, Marlon Brando, was called out from behind the stage to make a speech to the kid's in the audience and he spoke about the American Indians being here before us and that we could learn many things from them. He then presented a check to a nervous school district official in a gray suit. Bill had a lot of friends and Marlon was one of them. Brando's appearance made the whole event totally bizarre and unbelievable to me. Well he did tell a radio audience that he was going to invite Marlon to his party. A few weeks later one of Graham's top staff people, Zohn Artman, called me while I was in the middle of teaching a class at Opportunity to tell me that no one from the school district even bothered to thank Bill for what he had done. I told Artman I would check on that right away. I immediately called the superintendent's office and requested that they send a thank you letter to Bill and pronto. I assume they did cause I never heard anymore about it. Maybe someone at the central office was saved from one of Bill's memorable phone calls.
Joe said, "Then I married Janice Taylor and we had two kids, Devin now 25, and Tara who just turned 21. Tara just graduated from Mills College - she is a reporter for a newspaper in the Sacramento area. Devin is a certified massage technician who also works as a DJ at Raves around Berkeley and San Francisco. Devin lives on and off with his mother in Richmond, but most recently shared an apartment with three women in Berkeley. When Tara was attending Mills she got some scholarship help from her mother Janice who was a Mills alumna. We lived in a very large house in the Berkeley foothills that had a beautiful view of the entire Bay Area. This marriage also ended in divorce and it was hard on all of us. I learned from this divorce to mind my own business up to a point."
When Seven was about three or four and my daughter Denise was about the same age, Joe and I would get the kids together at birthday parties. Once we went over to Joe and Robin's house on Alcatraz Ave in Berkeley for Seven's birthday. Jane Fonda's baby was there and lot's of other kids. Everyone wore party hats and when it started to rain Joe got all the kids inside to watch a Laurel and Hardy movie. We were living in Daly City then and when we had kid's parties Joe would bring Seven over for those celebrations. Denise and Seven got a chance to get acquainted for a little while. A few years later our son Christopher came along. I brought him over to Joe's when he was just learning how to crawl and he just took off all over the house real fast. On a particular visit Joe played some tunes for us from his Tonight I'm Singing Just for You album, which is pure country western -- the back up band was made up of all Nashville studio musicians. I really loved that album and thought it was a shame it never got enough exposure or acceptance from the country western radio stations. Joe is a natural country singer and his name is Country. When Joe performs Woody Guthrie music he is moving towards that country direction more and more. Years later when Christopher was about 11, I took him to a New Year's Eve party at Joe's and we had a long talk with Barry Melton. Barry was telling us that he was studying to become a lawyer. Everyone was surprised that Barry was doing that. Chris asked me how could a famous psychedelic guitar player like Barry become a lawyer like Perry Mason. I didn't know how to answer that but Barry went on to become a lawyer just like he said he would and he became a big lawyer in Yolo County near Sacramento. Another time we all went to Joe and Janice's house in the Berkeley foothills. We had some tea, cookies and brownies there and on the way home my wife Rita started to feel a sort of far away feeling -- it took her a while to come down off those special brownies. Joe maintained he didn't know what was in those brownies. I first met Kathy McDonald at a traveling Vietnam War wall exhibit (a smaller replica of the one in Washington D.C.) in the park across from city hall in Berkeley in 1997. I was one of many readers of the names of the fallen listed on the wall. The plan was to have all 58,000 names read aloud over a 4-day period around the clock till all the names were read. Each reader read about 500 names for 30 minutes, and then was relieved by another reader. Joe was responsible for bringing the exhibit to Berkeley and he had just piloted an effort to get the City of Berkeley to put up a plaque to those from Berkeley killed in Vietnam placed at the Veteran's Building. He also led the charge on getting the City to establish an inter-active web site about the Berkeley War dead established. I saw Joe in the park after I read the names and he told me that he was trying to get Willie Brown the Mayor of San Francisco to endorse a similar plaque for those native San Franciscan's who died in the Vietnam War put up in Justin Herman Plaza in the City. This finally occurred on Memorial Day 2001 and Joe and his friend M.L. Liebler performed at the dedication.
I also met Tara a few months later at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco. Tara often helps Joe sell memorabilia at gigs -- CD's, t-shirts, mugs, posters and other Country Joe items. She was telling me that she was getting into public relations work and writing articles and advertising for Joe. I had a chance to speak with her a little as we were loading Joe's car after the gig -- the Honda with the GIMEANF license plate on it. Through it all Joe has always been a family oriented man as much as he could possibly be and he helped raise all 5 kids. He realized once a long time ago when he took baby Seven Anne to the hospital for some urgent medical tests that he had very strong paternal instincts, and that he felt all the same feelings any caring father would about his child. He was at the birth of all 5 young McDonald's including Ryan who was born at home. He has become like a Bing Crosby figure with adult children and some very young one's still at home. Joe has always been very attentive to all his brood and has given them as much love and care as a father can. Joe has purposely cut down on his long road trips so he can spend more time at home with the youngsters Ryan and Emily. He also stays in close contact with all the other older kids as much as possible. Often all the kids' show up at Joe's Bay Area gigs along with Kathy -- it's like a real family thing. Since Kathy is a full time Nurse, Joe has taken up a domestic role. Joe says it's like being a housewife -- taking care of the kids, cooking, cleaning, shopping and this goes on all the time. This is nothing new as Joe has been doing all this for along time now.
It was now 1980 and a blazing hot 100 degree summer day in Concord when Joe called to tell me he was coming to town to play a veterans gig. He asked if I wanted to go with him. My first thought was that it was going to be at the Concord Pavilion a new venue then that put on big shows. Joe stopped me in my tracks when he said it was going to be at a local motel near the freeway. Well I immediately said I would love to go. About an hour later he came by the house and we drove over to a motel near the freeway. We checked in at the office and Joe asked for the room number of his contact. When we got to the room I was surprised to see about 50 vets and their wives or girlfriends. There was a big map of Vietnam over the bed and we were given a very warm welcome. Over on the nightstand was a large cake with a red and black unit flag with a skull and cross bones on it below that it said Burch Ramsey Tank Corps Unit. Joe went to work right away taking out his guitar quickly. He then sat on the bed and started playing basically the same set he would play in a nightclub or at a concert. Joe really got their attention when he did the "Fish Cheer" and then broke into the "Fixin-To-Die-Rag." Some of the vets couldn’t believe that Joe actually came to play for them at the motel. At the conclusion of the set they really sounded off with a great round of applause. Then Joe took out some audiocassette tapes he had of the same music he just played and told them he would offer them for $5 each. Many of the vets lined up by the bed and dropped $5 into the guitar case as Joe handed them a cassette. We all had some cake and soon left the motel and headed back to my house. Joe told me that day some things about the problems many of the vets encountered when they returned home from the war. He said he realized that he had started to take up the causes of the vets and was starting to play benefits for them around the country. For the next 23 years Joe has been consistent in his support of Vietnam vets and their causes. He has appeared at memorials, benefits, symposiums, and conventions like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Reuniouns. Joe has become knowledgeable on such issues as PTSD and Agent Orange. He started campaigns in the cities of Berkeley and San Francisco to get city officials to put up monuments to those killed in Vietnam from those cities. He has been instrumental in bringing the traveling Vietnam Wall to both Berkeley and San Francisco were in both cases the names of the over 58,000 killed were read out loud. At the dedication of the San Francisco Memorial plaque Joe sang "Mourning Blues," "Remembrance" and "Carry On." I ran into Gerald Nicosia, a distinguished writer, at a reading he was giving at Cody’s Books in Berkeley. He told me that Joe had done a benefit several years ago with poet Maxine Hong Kingston at the house of activist Jeff Mackler, in Oakland, to help him raise money to transcribe hundreds of tapes for his tome Home to War. His book deals with conditions the vets faced when they returned home from the War and it wasn’t pretty. Nicosia said, "Joe is totally accepted and loved by all the vets I know. He is always there to do a memorial or benefit concert or just entertain at veterans’ events. He is one of the guys and is never a "celebrity" amongst them. Like all the vets I know you don’t try and lay any hype down on Joe, and he plays it straight with you. Like other vets I know, Joe also suggests a lot of anger just below the surface, and weariness at the injustice that goes on and nothing you can do to make a long-term difference. Vets spend a lot of time raising their kids, keeping up friendships and keeping the community together. I think when Jack McClosky told Joe that he was a vet too, he gave him a key to the identity he’d always been searching for, and maybe not too successfully in the Sixties psychedelic rock world." Vet-activist Phil Reser who has known Joe for 25 years told me about Joe and his role with the vets. In 1990 Reser was a Board member of Swords Into Plowshares - A San Francisco Veterans Advocacy Group. I asked him what he thought when he first heard Joe’s song "Fixin’ to Die Rag" while he was serving in Viet Nam. He said, "Almost everyone in Nam knew and had heard Joe’s Rag and Fish cheer. Of course it was not played on the Armed Forces radio network. When I was a grunt in 1969, all of my friends and I knew the United States was involved in one of the most controversial wars in its existence. The Vietnam War represented the first American conflict that significantly lacked support from everyone at home. This was the thing about the "Fixin’ to Die Rag", it represented all those deeply almost unconscious thoughts and feelings about the lack of consensus regarding the U.S. involvement, and how we kids just out of high school had little hope that we might come back home alive or at least in one piece. Some of us believed that the War was necessary in protecting democracy and protecting freedoms across the world. Others believed that the U.S. had no right involving themselves in a civil war and to send our young Americans to a war whose purpose was so unclear. I heard the "Fixin’ to Die Rag" over there and also listened to the psychedelic rock and blues like Iron Butterfly, Blind Faith, Canned Heat, The Animals -"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was a big favorite." I received a letter from another friend of Joe's, Vietnam veteran-activist Gordon Smith of Monterey. He told me about his Rio Americano (Sacramento) High School pal Rocky Cole who was drafted and served in the U.S. Army as a member of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade at Duc Pho. Smith said, "At a time when Joe’s " Fixin’ To Die Rag" played the airwaves of the world, Rocky’s letters I received from Vietnam simultaneously revealed the horrible combat patrols he went on against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. After two months into his tour Rocky wrote: Nov 9, Gordon, … I’m looking what I step on. About a month ago 22 of us went out. We hit a (booby trapped) 155mm artillery round, only 8 came back, the rest of the guys (medivacked out) were really torn up bad, nobody was killed but most will never walk again. I don’t see any reason for it either. I’ve seen so many guys killed and wounded and for no good reasons. Maybe the government will realize this soon; I’ve been lucky so far. I hope my luck holds out for 10 more months. Well that’s all I have to tell you now. -- Rock
Why did Joe focus his attention on the issues of the vets in the 80s? I asked that question to Reser who said, "I think Joe was pretty much a regular Joe and understood what being an enlisted guy was like. He knew like so many of us, that there was some real bad stuff going on in this country and things needed to change. Of course Joe still gets lumped together with some 60s radicals like Jane Fonda in the minds of some vets. It helps them explain why we lost the war in Vietnam. It was the protest movement. Of course, these anti-war folks, Joe included, demoralized the troops and said bad things and smoked pot and it’s all their fault and they had long hair and made free love and they had weird music and they were all commies and they made them so mad they even are today. These vets continue to stamp their feet and cry traitors. That’s the right wing attitude but if you look at the history, you would know that Joe and all the other American citizens including a fair number of Vietnam veterans were just exercising their right under the Constitution, of redress and grievance, at something they felt was seriously wrong. Americans both civilian and vets don’t want to admit that they were part of the process. That they elected, backed, paid for and followed the orchestrators of this disaster as it spiraled into hell. I was part of all this and have to accept my role as such." There has been a painful emotional rift between many of the WWII Vets and the Vietnam Vets since the mid-70s. Even Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie enlisted during WWII in what was seen a righteous war and a total victory was viewed as necessary to save the world from serious evil doers. WWII was different from Korea and Vietnam because they were really considered just police actions that did not have the country behind them. Of course many WWII vets for the most part have felt a certain disdain towards the Vietnam Vets, as they perceive them as losers unlike the winners they view themselves as. Korea ended in a tie and American troops have been there ever since protecting the piece of Korea that did not fall to the communists. While in Vietnam we pulled out leaving the communists to overrun the south unifying the nation under the communist regime of North Vietnam. When Joe was going around to established veterans organizations to try and organize support for Vietnam memorials in Berkeley and San Francisco he was rudely treated by some of the WWII vets he encountered. They just didn’t want to deal with anything to do with the Vietnam War…. On Memorial Day of 1990 Swords to Plowshares, a vets organization, held an awards dinner at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco and presented Joe an Arts and Humanities Award. This was the largest fundraiser in Swords to Plowshares 15 year history. Bill Graham had agreed to make the presentation but he had not arrived yet while Reser the emcee took the stage in front of 300 people to introduce Joe. During Reser’s comments Graham arrived having raced there straight from the airport. Phil then had the honor of introducing Graham the Rock Czar who was also a highly decorated Korean War Vet. It was shocking to see both Bill and Joe wearing suits. Bill placed the award into Joe’s hands and both received a standing ovation from the audience. It was a very high moment for Joe….
Footnote: Joe is working with the Oakland Museum on a major exhibit to be presented in 2004 called Next Stop Is Vietnam. The exhibit will examine the huge impact the Vietnam War had on California History. I attended a three-day workshop in 2000 on the planning for Next Stop Is Vietnam. Among those participating included Joe, David Harris, Ron Blitzer, Barry Romo, Gerry Nicosia and General Wastemoreland.
A POSTSCRIPT
The day that George Bush Sr. unleashed America’s military might upon the Iraqi military in 1991; I was in San Diego at an anti War rally attended by thousands of people. We read the names of all those killed in the Viet Nam War and I led them in the singing of the "Star Spangled Banner." I also did the "Gimme an F Cheer", and sang the "I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag." Across the street was a man holding a sign that read, "Give War a Chance."
We then began to march, and after several blocks the ranks became disorganized. I started monitoring when some young kids, looking like punks or anarchists, set fire to an American flag. I quickly took it out of their hands and put it out. They wanted me to give it back to them. I told them I was keeping it, as it was not for burning. I ended up taking the flag home to Berkeley and kept in the basement. When I was in boot camp with the Navy I was never taught how to properly dispose of a flag.
A few years ago, I did a rally for those who fought in or protested the Vietnam War in Berkeley. A young man, about 20, was wearing his fathers Army jacket. He was given an American flag to hold during the ceremony and he kept dragging it on the ground. I walked over to him and told him it was not right to do that. He said, "This is just a piece of cloth to me." I stared at him and told him to hold it up, which he did. That day we also flew the South Viet Namese flag for the first time at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus.
On Veterans Day in 1995, the City of Berkeley Veterans Memorial Building was filled to overflowing. The crowd had come to witness the unveiling of the Berkeley Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The memorial consisted of a plaque listing the names of the twenty-two citizens who died in Vietnam. Another component of the memorial was the first interactive on-line Vietnam memorial, where anyone around the world could see photographs and other graphics connected with the lives of those claimed in that war. Visitors to the web site could also leave their own sentiments for all to share.
The Berkeley History Museum, housed inside the Veterans Building, had hundreds of artifacts from the war on display. A large red, white and blue bunting draped the building itself.
Among those gathered for the dedication were those who fought in Vietnam, and those who opposed the war. A Vietnam Veterans of America Color Guard, with honorary members of the South Vietnamese military, presented not only the American flag, but also the South Vietnamese flag. A Buddhist priest, so often the symbol of anti-war sentiment in both countries offered a meditation. Berkeley Mayor, Shirley Dean, wept openly as she read her speech apologizing to the families and friends present for the long delay in honoring these Berkeley citizens who died for their country.
There was a magical quality to the day. There was no anger or hostility, just complete agreement that blaming soldiers for war is like trying to blame fire fighters for fires. There was the sound of weeping as the crowd remembered and honored the lives lost in a cause most Americans, including the chief architect of the War, Secretary of State Robert McNamara, still does not claim to fully understand.
An obviously distraught woman struggled to bring her self to enter the memorial building to look at the artifacts. She was once a member of the Berkeley Vietnam era Draft Board and she was attempting to summon the courage to look upon the photographs and medals of the men she sent into battle, never to return.
How could an event like this take place in the city known to the world as The Peoples Republic of Berkeley, a place famous for the Vietnam War protests of the 60s and 70s. How could this dedication take place across the street from the same City Park known back then as Ho Chi Minh Park?
I was the person responsible for suggesting that the Berkeley memorial be built. It was as Country Joe that I earned world fame during the Vietnam era for writing and singing a song whose chorus is: "and it is 1,2,3 what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Viet Nam - and its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates. There ain’t no time to wonder why -- Whoopee - we’re all gonna die." This was the same song I sang on the stage at Woodstock in 1969, in front of 400, 000 people, and for audiences all over the world ever since. I am an honorably discharged Vietnam era Veteran having served 3 years in the Regular Navy. I also grew up in Southern California with American Communist party members as parents. I had an early realization that not all Americans agree on things. Having had both these experiences in my background left me feeling victimized. I had no love for the leaders of the American military or the American left -- I was not enamored or mystified by either entity. A life mission did emerge from these experiences that I was never to abandon -- 1.Dedication to the cause of justice. 2. A dream of peace. 3. To try and help those who can not defend themselves.
By the time Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in 1975, I along with millions of others was emotionally drained and exhausted. I wanted to forget America’s longest and most controversial war and get on with my life. That plan worked well for about 6 years, until the phone started ringing with requests from Vietnam veterans for my help securing benefit programs for those with war related problems. I answered this call and began a journey that eventually led me to the dedication of the Berkeley Vietnam Veterans Memorial fourteen years later.
In 1981, I managed to forget I was a military veteran and saw myself as a rock star that helped veterans. It wasn’t until the late, veteran activist; Jack McCloskey reminded me that I was also a Vet, that I began to look at myself in a new way. I had the realization that I was just as guilty of helping conduct the war, as I was of trying to stop the war - and I found this to be a terrible blow to my ego. After this I began to talk almost exclusively of my military experiences and I identified with veterans and military personnel so much so that I was driving my family and friends a bit crazy.
I read everything I could on the subject of the Vietnam War. I began to get involved in many Vietnam Veterans events taking place all over the country. I came to Washington, D.C. dressed in Navy whites, to stand alongside members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). This was to protest action against the Veterans Administration’s neglect of Agent Orange victims, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other war related problems among Veterans and their families.
During our protest march in D.C., we paused for a moment at the then construction site of the black marble Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the product of Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs and architect Maya Lin. Prior to this moment I had never thought about a War Memorial. But this experience got me thinking -- it was perhaps my first post-war thought about the problem of healing from the War.
Soon after the visit to Washington, I was back home in Berkeley working in my garden. My neighbor was also working in his garden so we struck up a conversation, and of course, I went on and on about the Vietnam War. He then quietly told me that his son was killed in the war. I was totally stunned. I was not aware that I had ever even met someone who lost a son in that war. Now I had. It struck me that I also had a son, and that fact magnified my sense of compassion. Not long after this chance encounter with my neighbor, I was in Washington, D.C. again and went to the then finished Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I took a photograph of my neighbor’s son’s name and made a rubbing of the name. I brought the photo and rubbing back to my neighbor and his wife. It was a sad and loving experience talking to them about the death of their son. I discovered that a mistake had been made identifying him as a resident of New York (he had graduated from West Point, his last address prior to his death) and as such was going to be left off the California State Vietnam War Memorial in Sacramento. I was able to facilitate his name going on the California memorial. I noticed that we immediately all felt some closure and healing.
I soon found out that there were many debates in the veteran’s community about the spending of great amounts of money on Monuments as opposed to the spending of money on veteran’s services. I started thinking about that and many other related issues. I found that I did not feel guilty about my military service and at the same time felt no remorse over my protesting the war: I felt I had the right as a military veteran and a citizen to express my self under the first amendment.
I realized that my generation has not been allowed to grow up together and felt bad that some of my peers had never had the experience of going to rock dances and love ins in the 60s. Since I was a vet, a hippie and a known anti-war protester - who never lacked respect for the GI’s - I had entrée into both worlds. I began to see the biggest difference was between the individuals who did nothing during the war and those who did do something. Those motivated to serve joined the military or the anti-war movement. Others joined the Red Cross or some other public service. Those motivated to make a moral stand sometimes left the country at great sacrifice and government intimidation, some became conscientious objectors or did hard jail time for refusing the draft. Others just dropped out and became hippies to be disowned by their parents.
The vast majority of the 50 million people making up the Vietnam generation did nothing but wait the War out. Ten million people, nine million men and one million women, served in the Vietnam era military and several million were in the peace movement or the counterculture, as it is sometimes called. Many of the people who did nothing were able to move up the social economic ladder into positions of power and leadership, leaving those who experienced the trauma of the era on the outside looking in.
In 1997, Jan Scruggs from the Washington, D.C. memorial association, offered to bring A new one-half scale replica of the D.C. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, called "The Wall That Heals" to Berkeley. The wall was to be displayed in the very park once called Ho Chi Minh Park, during protests held there during the war. The wall was to be available 24 hours a day. I arranged a program to have all 58,000 names on it read around the clock. At one point I thought that this would be impossible to accomplish given the resources and overwhelming logistics -- I thought about aborting the idea, then several large donations came in and the Mayor’s right hand woman Tamlyn Bright took over. Tamlin had a Vietnam War death in her own family. She answered every phone call and assigned every volunteer reader a time period of 30 minutes to read the names. Hundreds of people from Berkeley and all over the Bay Area volunteered to read, and Bright’s answering machine was so full she could not even call them back. One group that really helped a great deal was the UC Berkeley ROTC unit who came out in uniform and were there day and night the entire time. The program ended with a bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace" as the names of Merchant Mariners who died in the war were read. No one who attended was the same when they left. I could not help but thinking that had Richard Nixon and Robert McNamara been able to envision such a ceremony 30 years ago, their policies would have been much different. Happily the success of this travelling wall went on to appear in many other cities around the country.
At times I have resisted my connection to the Vietnam War. It has been consistently bad for business and I have been warned and cautioned by many of my peers for constantly bringing up the issues of the Vietnam War in my songs and in my talking to my audiences. Over the years I have accepted this as my fate. Since the time I sang "I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag" at Woodstock I cannot escape a connection with the Vietnam War. Whether or not I chose to make Vietnam a focus of my life, it seems to have chosen me. My efforts to help veterans and the country heal from the war have been both reviled and honored, just like the war itself. There were times when I thought I would lose my mind. The worst of times came for me during the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Extremists on the Nation’s political left and right wings squandered huge resources while Vietnam Vets suffered in VA hospitals, on the streets, or in their homes with families sharing their burdens with little outside help or support.
To America’s credit we finally seem, at the turn of the Century, to finally be healing and accepting the fact the Vietnam War, as McNamara now suggests, was a horrible mistake. It was certainly not the fault of those who fought the war or those who resisted it.
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With Blair Hardman