Country Joe McDonald - 50 (2017)

JOE MCDONALD'S first collection of recordings issued in 1965 as a private pressing featured his friend Blair Hardman on guitar and vocal. Blair appears on this collection as well, on bass. That recording, The Goodbye Blues, has been issued a couple of times—once by the label First American—but the most notable issue was a white jacket, sent as a Christmas record/card—with each one illustrated by Joe. There have been a lot of records since that one.
Throughout his Vanguard, Fantasy—and Rag Baby—years, Joe created the same kinds of songs on different themes as he had while part of Country Joe and the Fish. Politics, sexism, war, veterans, the environment, loneliness, love found and lost—the list goes on. His recordings are like an audio newspaper—pick a daily topic and somehow or another it turns up on an album.
His current collection of songs is, in a sense, a contemporary survey of current topics---some right from the headlines of your local newspaper. “Era of Guns” speaks to the consequences we all are subject to by continuing unlimited access to guns by anyone who wants one. The fear and uncertainty in many communities and neighborhoods is daily played out on the total 24-hour news and the printed press. It seems unable to be contained. The anger in society at this point in time is slightly overwhelming. “Black Fish” points out, in the footsteps of “Save The Whales,” the continued mistreatment of sentient species on our planet—species that should always remain free. There are songs of longing—“Roseeann,” “Round and Round”; angst—“Sadness and Pain,” “Silent Rage”; and time passing—“Where Did the Time Go?” It is a collection that speaks to today and yesterday of a future of promise and a past fondly remembered.