Barry Melton
| Barry "The Fish" Melton | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | The Fish |
| Born |
June 14, 1947 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Genres | Rock, psychedelic rock, acid rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, attorney |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1965–present |
| Associated acts | Country Joe and The Fish, The Dinosaurs |
| Website | counterculture |
| Notable instruments | |
| Gibson SG | |
Barry "The Fish" Melton (born June 14, 1947) is the co-founder and original lead guitarist of Country Joe and The Fish and The Dinosaurs. He appears on all the Country Joe and The Fish recordings and he also wrote some of the songs that the band recorded. He appeared in the films made at Monterey Pop and , and also appeared as an outlaw in the neo-Western film, Zachariah, and other films in which Country Joe and the Fish appear. An attorney and member of the State Bar of California, Melton has maintained a criminal defense practice since 1982.
Melton was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of secretary Taube "Tillie" (née Kuchuck) and James Melton, a HVAC engineer who taught at Los Angeles City College. His mother was from an East Coast Jewish family (her parents were from Odessa) and his father was from a Texas pioneer family and shares ancestry in colonial Virginia with George Washington, as well as deep roots in Ireland.
Raised in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood and the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California, Melton served as a Congress of Racial Equality volunteer during Freedom Summer and participated in a demonstration against Trần Lệ Xuân during her September–October 1963 lecture tour of Europe and the United States. Having previously studied under Kay Kyser guitarist Milton Norman for much of his youth at the instigation of his parents, Melton initially befriended future bandmate Bruce Barthol in his high school's folk music club. After ascending to the presidency of that organization, Melton became ensconced in the American folk music revival in earnest, playing at such venues as the Ash Grove. A summer 1964 hitchhiking excursion to the San Francisco Bay Area and his hometown of New York City yielded his first introduction to Joe McDonald at a Malvina Reynolds concert in the Bay Area.
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