LEWISTON —The days of angry anthems and profane protests have melted away for Country Joe McDonald.

Four decades have mellowed the guy who became hugely famous for his Woodstock performance of the “Feel-Like-I’m Fixin’-To-Die Rag,” a rollicking condemnation of the Vietnam War.

Now 67, McDonald said he is happy to play for the 50 and 60-somethings who are gathering this summer to attend the “Heroes of Woodstock” tour, scheduled to make a stop Aug. 9 at The Barnyard in Livermore. Also along for the tour is Jefferson Starship, Canned Heat, members of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Ten Years After and the Grateful Dead’s Tom Constanten.

Baby boomers still love the music, he said.

However, McDonald’s fame has eroded —  “People don’t know who I am so much anymore” — and few young folks have ever heard of Yasgur’s farm or what happened there on an August weekend in 1969.

“A lot of those people don’t know anything about Woodstock, never even heard of it,” McDonald said in a phone interview from his home in Berkley, Calif.

How does that make him feel?

“Fine,” McDonald said. “I don’t care.”

McDonald and his anti-war song were big once. His performance on the Woodstock stage— leading as many as half a million people in a profane chant — was an emblematic moment in the anti-war movement and a riveting one in the Oscar-winning documentary that followed in 1970.

He’s proud of the protest, but he sees little relevance today, when there are many songs commenting on society. People who try to connect his anthem to Iraq and Afghanistan are reaching too far, he said.

“It was about Vietnam,” said McDonald, who served in the Navy during the war’s early years. It means something to the people who knew somebody who fought there or is still coping with that war’s effects, he said,

His own fame has similarly expired, he said.

“That happens in music,”  he said. “It’s perfectly normal. How many people know who Benny Goodman was? Or the Ink Spots or Hank Williams.”

In the decades since Woodstock, McDonald has kept working.

“Woodstock launched my career, but it didn’t launch me commercially,” he said. “I didn’t sell millions of copies or make millions of dollars.”

He released a total of 35 albums and toured with several of the musicians in the current show. He also performs in a pair of tribute shows: one for folk legend Woody Guthrie and another for Florence Nightingale.

When he comes to Livermore, McDonald plans to host the show. He’ll sing his signature “Feel-Like-I’m Fixin’-To-Die Rag.

Will he do the cheer, too?

“I’m going to leave it as a surprise,” he said. “These shows are family-oriented, and I’m not really protesting anything right now.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com