Samuel Charters, influential blues historian and record producer, dies

Music

March 19 at 5:28 PM

Samuel Charters, an influential blues and jazz historian and record producer, died on March 18 in Sweden. He was 85.

The cause was a bone marrow disorder, said his wife, Ann Charters.

Mr. Charters’s 1959 book “The Country Blues” brought renewed attention to the pre-World War II rural blues, a genre largely forgotten by all but the most ardent folklorists and record collectors.
....

He also produced four albums by the psychedelic band Country Joe and the Fish, including their popular anti-Vietnam War protest song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag.”

I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die is the second studio album by the influential San Francisco psychedelic rock band, Country Joe and the Fish, released in 1967. Recordings took place in Vanguard studios in 71 West 23rd Street, New York City. The title track, written by a U.S. Air Force medic named Bob Boardman, remains one of the most popular Vietnam protest songs from the 1960s and originally appeared on a 1965 7" EP titled Rag Baby: Songs of Opposition.