Way back in the early 1960s, after serving a hitch in the U.S. Navy and singing folk songs on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley’s own Country Joe McDonald became an anti-war activist, a rock music icon, and a staunch advocate for veterans and the environment. His ground-breaking band, Country Joe and the Fish, gained fame for performing at rallies and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and for its high-flying psychedelic music that became a staple of college, progressive, and underground radio stations, not to mention the mind-bending performance at Woodstock.
In recent decades Joe has continued to bring his music to audiences around the world and to campaign for the issues closest to his heart. His most recent album, Time Flies By, features 25 songs from his rich career as a solo artist and band leader. “His solo work over the years has always been thoughtful, delightfully skewed, and unique,” says the website AllMusic in its review, and that’s just what you can expect tonight – music and stories that are thoughtful, delightfully skewed, and thoroughly Country Joe!
Bob Reid has presented thousands of workshops and performances for children and adults over the past 30 years, and countless artists have sung his songs, including the late Pete Seeger. “There isn’t a group of kids in the world that can resist Bob Reid!” Pete said. “He’ll get them singing, writing songs, dancing, and they’ll all be asking, ‘When’s that man coming back?’” A fifth generation Californian from Santa Cruz, with an African American, Native American, French, Spanish, German, and Jewish heritage, Bob says that his attraction to music comes from its “power to communicate ideas, values, and experiences.” His albums include Abracadab, Marz Barz, and We Are the Children, and the United Nations has used his song “Water” to promote their International Decade of Freshwater.
Toulouse Englehardt took two guitar lessons in his life, one from Larry Carlton, who taught him how to play “Walk, Don’t Run,” and one from Wes Montgomery. “Back when I was just turning thirteen,” Toulouse says, “Wes gave me a few tips in technique at the backstage door of the famous Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, California at one o’clock in the morning!” The tips must have been good ones, because he went on to become one of the “Takoma Seven,” the highly celebrated innovators of finger-style guitar who recorded for Takoma Records from 1965 to 1976, a group that included John Fahey and Leo Kottke. His album Toullusions from that period is a classic. The Los Angeles Times calls him a “guitar genius,” Longboard Magazine calls him “the Segovia of Surf,” and guitarist extraordinaire David Lindley calls him “one of my all-time favorite guitar players.” His playing features lightning-fast fingerpicking and colorful, cinematic melodies, and he tells a good story, too.
Way back in the early 1960s, after serving a hitch in the U.S. Navy and singing folk songs on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley’s own Country Joe McDonald became an anti-war activist, a rock music icon, and a staunch advocate for veterans and the environment. His ground-breaking band, Country Joe and the Fish, gained fame for performing at rallies and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and for its high-flying psychedelic music that became a staple of college, progressive, and underground radio stations, not to mention the mind-bending performance at Woodstock.
