Barry "The Fish" Melton

This page is not meant to be a complete discography. Thankfully, the albums pictured below are still relatively available, which is why they're shown. Several of my albums are not pictured, however, I'm hoping to make them all available -- at least via download -- in the near future.
		Jamasutra - Revolution Down The Road - 2010 My English and French collaboration with guitarist Stéphane Missri makes me proud “Revolution Down the Road”, a bilingual French/English neo-psychedelic music album that also features the spectacular Danish bassist, Charles Jannic, and well-known French drummer Christophe Rossi, former editor of the French drumming magazine, Batteur. The new album was released under their collective band name, Jamasutra. “This was truly a trans-Atlantic effort for me,” says Barry ‘The Fish’ Melton, who flew from San Francisco to Paris and back over the course of three years to work on the project, much of which was recorded in the Chennevières commune of Val-de-Marne just outside of Paris. Says Melton, “Much of my early work was influenced by Middle-Eastern music, which becomes immediately apparent were you to see me with Country Joe in the 1967 movie, Monterey Pop. But the opportunity to play with a gifted guitarist like Stephan Missri, who was born in Algeria when it was still part of France, presented us with a phenomenal opportunity to meld our styles across the hands of time into a unified blend of contemporary sound.” The new Jamasutra album also includes the strong influence of Stephan Missri’s unique lyrics and vocal style, in both French and English, which give the music an incredible fluency. And Melton contributes to the lyrical fabric of the album with a call to arms regarding the current state of the world’s ecosystem – in English – with an adaptation of the traditional song, Shady Grove, exhorting the listener to take action to save the planet (and provides the foundation for the album’s title, “Revolution Down the Road.”) The supporting cast of the album includes a virtual who’s who of French neo-psychedelic music, including Eric Cougrand, Jean-Michel Laugier and Alexandre Manconi, together with the kaleidoscopic and powerful post-production mixing skills of Xavier Dorémus. And those who obtain a physical copy of the CD will be treated to the very special art of Yves Courson that graces not only the album cover, but the disc itself.

		DUAL IN THE DESERT - 2007 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon Taxim Records of Germany has a Summer 2007 release of the recently recorded, straight-up, hard-driving album I did with Rich Hopkins. The album features the incomparable drumming of Tom Larkins, long-time drummer with Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, and Tucson's own Nick Augustine on bass. The album is really a guitar "shoot-out," and recorded in Tucson, Arizona, which is why "Dual in the Desert" is an apt description. The album is just out, so for now, the only place I know you can get it is Taxim Records.

		THE JOHN FAHEY TRIBUTE ALBUM - 2006 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon Released December 2006! This is "The Revenge of Blind Joe Death," a John Fahey tribute album, and I appear on one cut of the album - "Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Phillip XIV of Spain." I'm a part of "Canned Fish," a band that includes me, Fito de la Parra and Larry "The Mole" Taylor of Canned Heat (drums and bass), Phil Kellog and Henry Kaiser (guitars) and Mark Hummell (harmonica). You can get the album from amazon.com or other Internet music outlets. John Fahey was an important and innovative guitarist, and he was a founder of Takoma Records. The original manager of Country Joe and the Fish, ED Denson, also managed John Fahey and ran Takoma Records with John (both of them were from Takoma Park, Maryland). Fahey and Denson also helped bring such artists as Furry Lewis, Skip James, Bukka White, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt back into the public eye in the early 1960's after making many trips to the South on music research trips, locating these great bluesmen and bringing them before folk music audiences in the North. My share of the royalties on this record are being donated to Music Cares, a charitable organization that provides assistance to musicians in need.

		DINOSAURS - "FRIENDS OF EXTINCTION" - 2005 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon Evangeline Records has released what's sure to become a Dinosaurs classic, "Friends of Extinction." I spent most of the 80's working in this all-San Francisco band, and this double-CD features all the great Dinosaurs lineups including Peter Albin, John Cipollina, Papa John Creech, Spencer Dryden, Robert Hunter, Merl Saunders and me. One of the CDs is all never-before released live material and it features such guest artists as Stu Blank, Greg Elmore, Robbie Hoddinott, Doug Killmer and Kathi McDonald. The other CD includes the original Dinosaurs studio album + bonus cuts. The double-CD album is available directly through Evangeline Records, or even try Amazon.com.

		THE SALOON YEARS - 1997 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon "The Saloon Years" is a release featuring a selection of songs recorded with various versions of my band between 1982 and 1994. All of the cuts on the album were recorded at The Saloon, one of San Francisco's oldest nightspots. The Saloon traces its history from the mid-19th-century days of the Barbary Coast, survived the '06 and '89 quakes, and stands today as a North Beach landmark. The album features my friends Peter Albin (bass [see above]), John Cipollina (guitar [see above]), Spencer Dryden and David Getz (Drums [see above]), and guitarists Bob Flurie (HooDoo Rhythm Devils) and Peter Walsh (Seatrain and the Commander Cody Band). The band was always billed as the Barry "the Fish" Melton Band, but in more recent years, I've come to think of the band as Middle-Aged Men With Musical Instruments. We had a big record release party at The Saloon, 1232 Grant St., San Francisco, on July 25th and 26th, 1997.

		SONGS OF THE NEXT GREAT DEPRESSION - 1981 Fifth solo LP Click HERE to buy from Amazon

		LEVEL WITH ME - 1979 Fourth solo LP Click HERE to buy from Amazon

Click HERE to buy from Amazon		WE ARE LIKE THE OCEAN - 1977 Third solo LP

Click HERE to buy from Amazon		BARRY MELTON - THE FISH - 1975 Second solo LP.

		MELTON, LEVY AND THE DEY BROTHERS - 1972 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon Evangeline Records also did a 2002 release of the "Melton, Levy & the Dey Brothers" album I recorded for Columbia Records in the early 70's. The CD is also available through Evangeline Records , or amazon.com. The album was co-produced by the late, great and incomparable blues guitarist, Michael Bloomfield, and features a duet with the both of us and many other fine performances by brothers Rick and Tony Dey (bass and drums, respectively), together with Jay Levy on keyboards. The album was recorded at Columbia Recording Studios in San Francisco and Los Angeles, has some really fine production values, and it features several of my songs along with some Rick Dey classics that should not be lost in the march of time.

		This is the cover of the second Country Joe and the Fish album on Vanguard: "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die." Joe and I recorded two "EP" records for what is now ("Country") Joe's label, Rag Baby, the first of which featured us as a duo (and also with a jug band lineup) before we signed with Vanguard; and in addition to our first album, "Electric Music for the Mind and Body," we did three more for Vanguard (for a total of five). Over the course of time, Joe and I had a number of different musicians in the band we called "Country Joe and The Fish." In the mid-70's we recorded a reunion album on the Fantasy label with the same musicians that did the first Vanguard album, but we later recorded a song for the soundtrack of the movie "More American Graffiti" in 1979 that featured a lineup entirely different from any that we previously recorded with (we also appeared in the movie). Recordings of Country Joe and the Fish are now a part of numerous compilations and, of course, part of various issues of soundtracks from the movies, "Monterey Pop," and "Woodstock."

		BRIGHT SUN IS SHINING - 1970 - Click HERE to buy from Amazon Every kid has a dream. This is an album I began recording in January 1969, when I was 21 years old. Half of it is recorded in Chicago, with much of what was then the core of young bluesmen in town at the time: Morris Jennings on drums, who recorded with Howlin' Wolf that year; Donny Hathaway, who later became known for his spectacular work with Roberta Flack was then working with the Staples Singers (and, in fact, Pop Staples visited the studio during the sessions); Phil Upchurch, who was then the Chess House Band guitarist and was recording with Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, joined the session as a bass player; and Chess regular Gerald Sims, who was a fixture of the early Chicago soul sound as a member of the Daylighters and whose dozens of recordings included work with Little Milton, Bobby "Blue" Bland and Mary Wells. Gerald Sims later purchased the Chess studios in Chicago and produced records in that location for a number of years. The other half of the album includes sould music covers recorded in New York with members of the Wilson Pickett Band and the immortal Count Basie trumpet player, Joe Newman. All-in-all, this record was my 21-year-old fantasy come to life, recording some of my favorite blues and soul tunes of the era. It's recently been re-released by Comet Records, Vanguard Records' Italian affilliate and is likewise available through various Internet album sources.

LINKS TO ONLINE DISCOGRAPHIES	- -	Grateful Dead Family Discography: Barry Melton discography Grateful Dead Family Discography: Country Joe and the Fish discography

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