One of the original and most popular of the San Francisco Bay Area psychedelic bands, they were also probably the most enigmatic.

The band grew out of the Instant Action Jug Band, which had been formed by Joe McDonald in the Berkeley area around 1964 and which had included Barry Melton, a talented guitarist and singer.

Country Joe & The Fish was initially a recording alias. McDonald was also politically active in 1965 and managed to combine the two interests by producing independent political records.

That lineup for Country Joe & the Fish, in addition to McDonald on harmonica, acoustic guitar and vocals, included Melton on vocals and electric guitar, plus Shrager on washboard and kazoo, Bill Steele on washtub bass and Mike Beardslee on vocals.

The membership floated for a few months, and the sound was mostly folk and jug band-based, as they built up an audience with performances at coffeehouses such as the Jabberwock, and also later played shows at the Avalon Ballroom and the original Fillmore Auditorium.

They evolved in this period into a rock group, playing electric instruments. A second self-produced EP followed in June of 1966. By this time, McDonald and Melton were both playing electric guitars, Bruce Barthol, a 16-year-old friend of Melton's from high school, was in the lineup playing electric bass, David Cohen had joined on electric guitar and keyboards, Paul Armstrong, from the Instant Action Jug Band, played guitar, bass, tambourine and maracas, and jazzman John Francis Gunning had joined on drums. The record was good enough to get the group gigs in San Francisco, at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium, and it was reviewed in Billboard magazine and even played on the radio.

Five months after its release, the group signed a contract with Vanguard Records. Electric Music for the Mind and Body was released in April 1967, and it was embraced as a work of genius by those who heard it, a bold, powerful mix of blues, jazz, classical, folk and rock elements, all with a mesmerising psychedelic glow. It featured Cohen's prodigious organ work, Melton's, Cohen's and MacDonald's alternately lyrical and slashing guitars, McDonald's pleasing light folk tenor and the fluid rhythm section of Barthol and new drummer Gary 'Chicken' Hirsch, and remains one of the enduring landmark albums of that year.

Vanguard, emboldened by the reaction to the first album, had the band go back into the studio in the summer of 1967 and this time let them lead off with I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag. If the rest of the music wasn't quite as accomplished or bold as the content of the earlier album, it was more accessible, offering McDonald more of a chance to show off his singing voice and together the two albums represent the band's artistic and commercial peak.

The band was soon touring nationally, and it was among the first acts to become known for its use of a light show at its concerts. An appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967 utilising the light show only enhanced the band's reputation musically.

In the summer of 1968, the band was appearing in New York City at the Shaefer Summer Music Festival in Central Park. The group was planning on doing I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag when drummer Chicken Hirsch suggested that the opening, high school-style cheer (Gimme an 'F', gimme an 'I') be changed to something a lot more expressive. The new cheer stuck and the band's notoriety grew massively.

By that time, however, the best days of the band were over. Their third album, Together, reflected the growing divergence of the members, with MacDonald almost invisible on most of the album and Melton and Hirsch the dominant personalities and performers. They still managed to tour Europe and saw more demand for their performances across the US as well, and the continued controversy over and worsening prosecution of the Vietnam War helped keep their popularity high, and the growing underground enthusiasm for I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag sustained them. However, the lineup began coming apart at that point - Barthol was dismissed in mid-1968 and Hirsch was gone by the end of the year.

The next album, Here We Are Again, released mid-1969, was the debut of the new lineup of the group which, apart from the Airplane's Jack Casady sitting in on bass, had David Getz, late of Big Brother & the Holding Company, on drums. Cohen's exit led to an all-star jam (including Jerry Garcia and Steve Miller) credited to the band at the Fillmore West, which was recorded and subsequently released as a Country Joe & the Fish live album.

The lineup stabilised around McDonald, Melton, Getz and Peter Albin of Big Brother for 6 months in 1969. McDonald reassembled the band for its appearance at Woodstock, and the final lineup of Melton, Mark Kapner on keyboards, Doug Metzner on bass and Greg Dewey on drums was the one that took advantage of the momentum coming off of that performance.

In the spring following the festival, McDonald embarked on a solo career. He remained committed to bringing the Vietnam War to an end, participating in demonstrations and appearing on-stage with a satirical anti-military revue. Melton continued in music into the 1970s, but later joined the legal profession. Over the decades since, McDonald has periodically reunited with Melton - whose presence is essential for the official use of the Country Joe & the Fish name - and Cohen, Barthol and Hirsch, most recently in the wake of the war in Iraq.