LAKEPORT >> Barry Melton spends a lot of time in court.
No, it’s not a rock ‘n roll thing. The guitar player known in part for his stint with County Joe and the The Fish has spent the last three decades as a public defender — occasionally hitting the stage with his band.
But the impulse that drove him from a love of folk music to the rebellious “Fish Cheer” and iconic anti-war ragtime romp remains, even when he addresses this week’s fundraising concert at Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.
“I think we’re probably gonna cause some trouble,” Melton said with a laugh.
The Barry “The Fish” Melton Band performs on Saturday night, with proceeds benefitting KPFZ, Lake County’s community radio station. The lineup features Steve Ashman, David Aguilar, drummer Roy Blumenfeld of The Blues Project and Lowell Levinger — otherwise known as “Banana” — from The Youngbloods.
It’s a group with several lifetimes of musical experience, able to draw from hits and surprise audiences with new music. Melton has played alongside each of them off and on for at least 20 years, often many more.
“We play together — it’s the best expression of what we do,” he observed. “I feel most at home relating to people with a guitar in my hands.”
It may seem as if Melton was born with a six string at his hip, but Melton insists he always wanted to practice law. His parents gave him a guitar and encouraged him to learn, in part because of his father’s love of folk music.
“I remember resenting my mom because I was out playing baseball and she’d yell ‘Barry, come in,’” Melton recalled. “They made me practice. Of course, they had a different idea of what would happen.”
Melton was a teenager in the Bay Area when he met Country Joe McDonald and 17 when Country Joe and the Fish first recorded together. After electrifying the San Francisco counterculture, they put together an LP. “Electric Music for the Mind and Body” pointedly challenged the political and popular norm through satirical barbs and the advocacy of recreational drug use.
It was also an impressive album, drawing upon Melton’s folk influences. It remained on the Billboard top 200 for two years.
Of course, the band is well remembered for the follow up protest song “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die” and their appearance at Woodstock. Many refer to them as pioneers of psychedelic rock or ‘60s legends.
Melton dismisses all of it. He grew up next door to Woody Guthrie, long before Americans rediscovered the songs and labeled them “roots music.” He knew members of the New Lost City Ramblers as friends.
“And then of course you go to San Francisco and there’s an obscure group of friends playing music,” he said. “The idea they should be legendary is weird to me. They’re just ordinary folk.”
As for the rock genre, Melton refers back to the likes of Leadbelly and the New Lost City Ramblers.
“That music morphed into folk rock and the folk rock idiom morphed into something that allowed for improvisation,” he pointed out. “There had to be something more than playing a song straight up and down.”
He credits the creative San Francisco music scene of the mid-1960s and beyond for forcing musicians from the constraints of a two or three minute set piece.
“Improvisation — that’s playing,” Melton said.
The Barry “The Fish” Melton Band will likely venture off into spontaneous jams on Saturday. After all, they can draw on a lot of experience and the music learned over the years. Everyone in the band, Melton notes, is a lifetime musician.
But for a man associated by so many with protest, with countercultural songs and that rousing little thing that begins by encouraging the crowd to “give me an F,” there is a solid foundation.
“Folk,” Melton said. “Folk is kinda permanent.”
