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Rating: Electric music for mind and body.
With this first long-distance work, the young protest folk singer Joe McDonald adjusts the aim of his production, magically aligning it on coordinates that range from the black-and-white blues of the origins to the kaleidoscope of colors emanating from San Francisco in the second half of the 60s; where, to not mention a few names, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver Messenger Service were born. But unlike them, Country Joe carves his works like an artist/craftsman who starts from the block of granite just slightly rough-hewn by master Woody Guthrie and shaped and formed by his best student, Bob Dylan; to refine it and then paint it with the psychedelic visions of the lysergic soul, in which the Bay Area was immersed.
Always accompanied by the faithful guitarist Berry "The Fish" Melton (from this work onwards, the band was definitively extended to 5 members), Country Joe proclaims the manifesto of the Season of Love, becoming (un)knowingly the most radical and amplified voice of the hippie counter-culture (his real name is Joseph, given to him in honor of Stalin).
“Electric Music For Mind And Body” is a journey through songs one must allow themselves to be shaped by (for the mind) like the psych-blues “Flying High” or the instrumental rollercoaster of “Section 43” and songs on which one's nervous system must be tuned (for the body) like the deviant rock of “Dead Sound Blues” or the acid-rock’n’roll of “Superbird.” There are also heart-wrenching ballads like the jingle-jangle of “Sad And Lonely Times” or the bluesy “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine,” rarefied progressive forays in “Bass Strings” or the ironically British soul-garage, breath-stopping “Love.” But the piece that most represents the Californian artist is the freak waltz of “Porpouse Mouth,” a gypsy soul in its surreal and whimsical stride.
Country Joe & The Fish with “Electric Music For Mind And Body” define and codify (together with colleagues Kaleidoscope) the psychedelic folk rock, with the purity and naiveté of those who truly live as if a better world really exists.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
09 Bass Strings (05:03)
Hey partner, won't you pass that reefer round,
My world is spinnin', yeah, just got to slow it down.
Oh, yes you know I've sure got to slow it down.
Get so high this time that you know
I'll never come down, I'll never come down.
I believe I'll go out to the seashore, let the waves wash my mind,
Open up my head now just to see what I can find.
Oh, yes you know I'm gonna see what I can find,
Just one more trip now, you know I'll stay high
All the time, all the time.
Yes, I'll go out to the desert just to try and find my past.
Truth lives all around me, but it's just beyond my grasp.
Oh, yes you know it's just beyond my grasp.
I'll let the sand and the stars and the wind
Carry me back, oh carry me back.
L.S.D.
L.S.D.
L.S.D.
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