VINTAGE--This Country Joe promotional calendar was prepared by Tom Weller. Photography by Paul Kagan.

Moorpark’s Theater On High Street will be the venue that launches a small tour of the West Coast for ’60s rock band Country Joe & (members of) the Fish.

Joe McDonald, the band’s leader, has been a friend of Larry Janss, the owner of the Moorpark theater, since the mid-’70s. McDonald asked Janss if he could begin the tour at his facility. Reuniting with members of the Fish, Country Joe will perform at the Theater On High Street at 8 p.m. Fri., April 9 and Sat., April 10.

Country Joe & the Fish came about as part political device, part necessity, and part entertainment. In the fall of 1965, the remnants of the Free Speech Movement on the Berkeley Campus were organizing a series of demonstrations against the war in Vietnam at the Oakland Induction Center. Drawing on the experience of the civil rights movement, the anti-war organizers always provided entertainment before or after the march in order to hold people’s attention.

This was the time when the folk revival was beginning to turn into the San Francisco rock scene and "bands" were starting to appear everywhere. Joe McDonald was editing Rag Baby, a magazine he had founded, and, as the story goes, he ran out of material. He came up with the idea of doing a talking issue.

Through various devices and favors, he wound up having an EP pressed, an extended-play disc with four songs on it: two by a group called Country Joe & the Fish and two by local folk singer Peter Krug. That disc is said to be the first self-produced recording to be used by a band as a form of promotion.

The EP contained the original recorded version of an anthem of the sixties, "I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag," and "Superbird," Joe’s satire of President Lyndon Johnson. The group was a loose collection of friends and acquaintances, performing mostly jug band-flavored material, most of it Joe’s.

   After a brief period of what could be called indecision, Joe and Barry Melton earnestly put together a rock band, officially calling it Country Joe & the Fish, and started working at music on a full-time basis.

   The story goes that Joe’s parents named him for Joseph Stalin, whose nickname during World War II was "Country Joe." When CJ&F’s manager, Ed Denson, coined "the Fish" from a Mao saying about "the fish who swim in the sea of the people," the band had its name.

Having been immersed in the culture of the ’60s and involved in Vietnam War protests, McDonald became passionate about the lives of military veterans and nurses. He was espcially fascinated by the first military nurse, Florence Nightingale. McDonald is now a well-respected scholar on the famous nurse and recently traveled to Turkey to do further research on her life and activities during the Crimean War.

His 1991 record release "Superstitious Blues" includes an epic song he wrote for Clara Barton, another renowned military nurse, who was also the founder of the American Red Cross.

Many Fish fans remember Country Joe & the Fish because of their famous "cheer" called the Rag, which they introduced at a concert one year before performing at Woodstock. The cheer was done in a rally fashion: "Gimme an F, gimme an I . . . what’s that spell?" and the crowd was supposed to shout, "FISH!" Somehow it all got turned around and ended up being another four-letter word that starts with the letter F.

McDonald says that listening to the crowd at Woodstock shouting that infamous word was like hearing a huge cross-section of America’s youth telling the world how angry they were about the Vietnam War. A lot of changes came about as a result of that anger.

On June 26, Country Joe & the Fish will be honored at the Second Annual World Peace Music Awards in Vietnam for their musical and political contributions to world peace during the Vietnam War era.

"It is wonderful to be honored with a group that includes Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary," said McDonald, referring to other recipients of this year’s World Peace Awards.

McDonald says that when he’s in Moorpark this weekend, he’ll be performing a cheer. However, he’s not sure what it’s going to spell out. After the Friday and Saturday night performances, McDonald and his band will sign copies of their CDs for audience members.

For more information and to obtain tickets, call the Theater On High Street box office at (805) 497-8606.