There are voices that live in another time and place for me, faint voices that let you step into the past. You can pull them up on You Tube, but the intimacy of sitting in a bedroom, black light melting the lamp shade, is gone. Country Joe McDonald, with The Fish, or solo, was one of those voices for me. Always whispering. Now all that remains are those artifacts, the well worn vinyl.

I knew him from watching Woodstock. The iconic “FUCK” cheer was enough to hook me at 13. Then there was Rock and Soul Music and I was off to the record store.

In those days finding records was a sport and an art. You had to get to some pretty weird spots to find the best selections. Most of the Country Joe albums I had were bought on one trip to Florida.

Like most rock and roll kids, part of the obsession was flipping through rows of records. Weighing the cover, any previous knowledge of the band. Reading any notes to figure out the musicians. Hoping to find something dangerous or mysterious, something to make you feel alive.

Remember, you were spending your allowance, you had to be strategic. Today you can hear anything on a whim, back then you spent that money you were invested.

It was the summer before eighth grade and I was under the influence of the Summer Of Love. Country Joe fit nicely in that box. After a while you realize how much a part of the story of the sixties he was. This was on the ground reporting from a tumultuous time in America.

It was the happenstance appearance at Woodstock, getting everyone to chant an obscenity, that launched him into the counter culture subconscious. It was a finger to the war in Vietnam and made you believe music could change the world, an idea that ran deep through his catalog.

Here We Go Again may be my favorite album of his with The Fish. It leans early into the move from straight psychedelic to the country influence the scene morphed into in the early seventies. You can hear the road worn longing just below the warm friendly hug of the lilting opening track.

This is the sound of someone who has spent lifetime toiling at their art. It is lived in, honest, OK with the chaos. It is putting forth the belief that we need to believe in music. You come back because it is real, there is no fancy ending or neat resolution in Donovan’s Reef or Crystal Blues.

Still it was an odd solo album, War War War, that really was it for me. It spoke to my naive sensibilities. I was just discovering the power of poetry and McDonald’s brilliant re-purposing of Robert Service’s poems anout World War One couldn’t have dovetailed for me more perfectly. It was the rawness, I closed my eyes and could see Joe in a tattered uniform relating Service’s brilliant accounting of war.

It is the weight of two eras and my own personal battles suspended in a perfect liminal space. It covers the spcetrum of human emotion, a lot of anger, but humor too, and sadness, and even an optimistic hope. It was prologue and prelude.

Storytelling, laid bare with voice and guitar, is a difficult endeavor. McDonald did it with wide eyed grace, showing you the horror while keeping you grounded in the present. Right there, spinning on my turntable, he was instilling in me the need for peace.

His voice draws you in. It is unpretentious, he has seen the absurdity and sang out in defiance. Earthy, witty, wry, it was as much protest and cosmic joke, a spirit from another time whose echoes reverberate. When protest music works it nudges you toward the realization that this is the voice of the everyday people, not because it shouts.

That was Joe McDonald. A voice I will carry with me in memories of worn vinyl. Rest easy, your songs will march on.