David Bennett Cohen
David Bennett Cohen's Gear
David Bennett Cohen, renowned for his keyboard work with the '60s rock band Country Joe and the Fish, uses a Yamaha P-90 Digital Piano. His profile on Yamaha's official artist page highlights his extensive career and connection to this instrument.
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David Cohen played a Farfisa Compact Duo with Country Joe & the Fish at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967.
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In this photo, Cohen can be seen playing a Farfisa Combo Compact with Country Joe & the Fish at the KFRC Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mt. Tamalpais in June 1967.
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This is likely the "calliope" that was Cohen played on Country Joe & the Fish's "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag." Cohen recalled,
“We spent three or four hours trying to arrange the song, trying to figure out how to make the song work for a rock band. We were frustrated. So we took a break, and I started to play a ragtime version of it on a piano, just fooling around. Sam Charters jumps up, and says, ‘That’s it!’ and everyone got all excited. So we decided to do it like a ragtime song. Then, one of the instruments that was sitting around the studio was this electric calliope, so Joe got the idea, ‘Let’s put that on it!’”
Cohen doesn’t recall the make of the small electric calliope, but says it was painted to look like a traditional circus model. It came from a local instrument rental company, and Charters says it had caught his eye in a catalog “because I knew about calliopes from early New Orleans jazz history.”
The Band Organ fits both Cohen's carnivalesque description and the keyboard sound heard on the album. And while this keyboard is purely electronic and therefore isn't a true calliope, its physical appearance and sound were purposefully crafted to best resemble that of a calliope, creating a potential source of confusion. Additionally, Cohen's replacement in the band, Mark Kapner, later played this same RMI model on a television show, linking the instrument to the band.
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This newspaper clipping shows Cohen playing a Farfisa Mini Compact organ at an anti-HUAC rally. This article predates the band's first studio album, which was released in May 1967.
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