''Electric Music for the Mind and Body'' is Country Joe and the Fish's debut album. Released in May 1967 on the

Vanguard The vanguard (also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. History The vanguard derives fr ...

label, it was one of the first psychedelic albums to come out of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Tracks from the LP, especially "Section 43", "Grace", and "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" were played on progressive FM rock stations like KSAN and

KMPX KMPX (channel 29) is a television station licensed to Decatur, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex as an affiliate of the Spanish-language Estrella TV network. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Dallas-licensed ABC ...

in San Francisco, often back-to-back. A version of the song "Love" was performed at the 1969

Woodstock Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquar ...

. "Grace" is a tribute to Jefferson Airplane's lead singer,

Grace Slick Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter, artist, and painter. Slick was a key figure in San Francisco's early psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s. With a music career spanning four decades, ...

Recording

The album was recorded during the first week of February 1967 at Sierra Sound Laboratories, Berkeley, California, by Robert DeSousa, with production by Samuel Charters. It was released on May 11, 1967, on the

label. Due to deterioration of the original master tapes, the album was remixed in 1982 and this remix was used for the original CD release in 1990. In 2013 a new two-disc deluxe version appeared which included both the original mono and stereo mixes. It is the first time producer Sam Charters’ original stereo mixdown has been issued on compact disc. The liner notes to the 2013 version state that an outtake from the sessions, "Thought Dream", was later included on the band's follow-up, '' I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die''.

Reception

Bruce Eder in a retrospective review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

felt that the album is "one of the most important and enduring documents of the psychedelic era". The album was included in Robert Dimery's

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'' is a musical reference book first published in 2005 by Universe Publishing. Part of the ''1001 Before You Die'' series, it compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics ...

.^ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. .

Track listing

All songs by Country Joe McDonald, except where noted # "Flying High" – 2:38 # "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" – 4:21 # "Death Sound Blues" – 4:23 - Labeled as "Death Sound" on the mono version of the album # "Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth" – 2:48 - Labeled as "Porpoise Mouth" on the mono version of the album # "Section 43" – 7:23 # "Superbird" – 2:04 # "Sad and Lonely Times" – 2:23 # "Love" (Joe McDonald, Barry Melton, David Cohen, Bruce Barthol, John Francis Gunning, Gary Hirsh) – 2:19 # "Bass Strings" – 4:58 # "The Masked Marauder" – 3:10 # "Grace" – 7:03

Personnel

;Country Joe and the Fish * Country Joe McDonald - lead vocals (tracks 1-4, 6, 9-11), rhythm guitar (tracks 2, 4, 7-9),

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

(track 3),

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...

(track 5), harmonica (track 5),

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

(track 7),

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

s (track 11) *

Barry Melton Barry "The Fish" Melton (born June 14, 1947) is the co-founder and original lead guitarist of Country Joe and the Fish and Dinosaurs. He appears on all the Country Joe and the Fish recordings and he also wrote some of the songs that the band re ...

(tracks 1-5, 8-11), rhythm guitar (track 6), lead vocals (tracks 7, 8), bass (track 7) * David Cohen - rhythm guitar (track 1), organ (tracks 2, 4, 5, 8-10),

(tracks 3, 6, 7, 11) * Bruce Barthol - bass (all tracks except track 7), harmonica (tracks 7, 10) * Gary "Chicken" Hirsh - drums; background noise (track 11) ;Technical * Jules Halfant - sleeve design

References

External links

''Electric Music for the Mind and Body''
(

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) at

Radio3Net Radio 3 net is the former ''Radio România Tineret'' (or Radio 3). More than 20,000 albums are stored on Radio 3 net. A few of the prominent features available on the website are "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die ''1001 Albums You Mus ...

(streamed copy where licensed) {{DEFAULTSORT:Electric Music For The Mind And Body 1967 debut albums Vanguard Records albums Country Joe and the Fish albums Albums produced by Samuel Charters Acid rock albums