1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 87. Country Joe and the Fish – Electric Music For The Mind And Body (1967)

 

More San Francisco psychedelia, just what we need. But not to worry, as the album is pretty good, and the psychedelia is not overwhelming, becoming more pronounced as the album continues.

“Country” Joe McDonald and Barry “The Fish” Melton are the main writers and musicians here, having worked together previously in a jug band, which would explain the presence of folk and blues elements to some of the tracks.  

I’ve come to have a bit of a weird relationship with this album. The first time through, I made such sparse notes about it that I gave myself nothing to work with when I came back to write it up fully (going forwards, I’ve made more effort to do a full write-up as soon as possible). And I couldn’t remember the tracks particularly, so I went back and started to listen to it again, got about three tracks in, got distracted, and then started the whole thing over again.  And I still can’t clearly call to mind any of the tracks.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’ve come to rather like it.  I was going to say that soundwise, Country Joe and The Fish falls somewhere between Jefferson Airplane (and the final track, Grace, is in fact written as an homage to Grace Slick) and The Byrds, but that’s what I said about The Electric Prunes. See, it’s that 1967 San Francisco generic sound thing. They do remind me of somebody else though, which is maddeningly on the edge of my thought but I can’t pin it down. Something about Country Joe’s voice.

Near the beginning of the album, there are tracks like Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine which is a funky, bluesy little number that bounces along (although despite what the title says, is about “sweet Lorraine”), while Death Sound is a bluesly, country kind of track with nice use of a tambourine to mimic a rattlesnake.

With Superbird, Country Joe pokes fun at Lyndon B Johnson with a Kinks-esque groovy track, while many of the others are more psychedelic long-form journeys, like Section 43 or the aforementioned Grace. I can still only remember the riff from Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine out of all of the tracks, even though I liked this each time I listened to it. What did occur to me is that it’s kind of the Sixties music in a nutshell, moving from blues and baroque rock to jazz/psychedelia. I rather like it, and wish I could remember it a bit better. I like the idea of “electric music for the mind and body” as well, it sounds like a late 19^th Century rest cure. Electric music and ice water baths.