Creedence Clearwater Revival, the #19 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"CCR is the coolest band I have ever known!"

"One of the best bands ever, no question."

"CCR's music is so addictive."

"Awesome music!"

"One of the best bands to ever crossed the airwaves."

"Their music sounds as great today as it did back then."

"What a legendary band--they were incredible!"

"The greatest American band of all-time. I'll debate this to the death."

"TIMELESS music."

"These guys have to be close to the Top 10 bands of all-time."

"It doesn't get much better than this."

"CCR gets in your veins."

"One hell of a band! CCR was for real. No tricks. Just a great sound and superb musicians!"

"Absolutely outstanding group!"

"Their music defies words in their genius."

"Classic music that will be around 100 years from now. Rock on."

"So much feeling in their songs."

"Fantastic group!"

"We are blessed to have so many great songs to remember them by."

"CCR is the soul of America."

"Love their music--always makes me smile."

"Wonderful and irreplaceable band."

"Wow, just an incredible lineup of songs."

"One of the best bands in rock history."

"As good as good gets."

They were ranked in The Top 10 of the Rock Era for many years, being as high as #4 at one time.  It's now been over 40 years since they broke up, but this great Bay Area band is still in the Top 20:

Lead singer John Fogerty, drummer Doug Clifford and pianist Stu Cook formed this band while all were students at Portola Junior High School in El Cerrito, California.  Originally, they were known as the Blue Velvets and they backed Fogerty's older brother Tom at live performances and in the recording studio.

Tom soon joined the group and they signed a recording contract with Fantasy Records in 1964.  For the band's first release, Fantasy co-owner Max Weiss changed the group's name to the Golliwogs.  Cook shifted to bass guitar and Tom let John sing lead vocals, later saying, "I could sing, but John had a sound!"

In 1966, John and Doug both received draft notices from the United States military, with Fogerty joining the Army Reserve and Clifford becoming a member of the Coast Guard Reserve.

The following year, Saul Zentz bought the record label and said the band could record an album but only if they changed their name.  The members tossed around more than a dozen names, finally agreeing to Creedence Clearwater Revival because 1) Tom had a friend named Credence Newball, whose name they changed to form the word Creedence, 2) the television commercial for Olympia beer (which boasted of the "clear water" in the area), and 3) the group members' renewed commitment to succeed.

 

John and Doug were discharged from the military in 1968 and all four members quit their jobs to begin rehearsing and playing full-time gigs.  CCR released their self-titled debut album and one of their songs, a cover of a 1956 song by Dale Hawkins, began receiving airplay on WLS radio station in Chicago and in the San Francisco Bay area.  "Suzie Q" peaked at #10 in Canada and #11 in the United States.  

"Suzie Q" has sold over one million copies and after 10 years of struggling as as the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs, Creedence was finally on their way.    "I Put A Spell On You" did not follow up on that success, although with a peak of #58, it is one of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.  The YouTube video featured above uses concert footage of the song performed at Woodstock in 1969 synchronized with the audio.

 

John Fogerty told Uncut about how he wrote "Porterville":

           I went into the army in early ’67, and they

           got you marching all day out on an asphalt

           parade field about a mile square.  And 

           during all that marching, I would get

           delirious, and my mind would start playing

           little stories.  They all seemed to be sort of

           swampy and Southern, in the woods and 

           with snakes.  Br'er Rabbit, Mark Twain, a

           great old movie with Dana Andrews and

           Walter Brennan called Swamp Water.  So I

           ended up writing the song "Porterville"  

           while I'm stomping around in the sun.  It's

           semi-autobiographical; I touch on my

           father, but it's a flight of fantasy, too.  And

           I knew when I was doing it, "Man, I'm on to

           something here."  Everything changed 

           after that.

 

The debut has been certified Platinum.   Here is the foreboding "Walk On The Water".

 

Now a known entity, Creedence began attracting fans and recorded their second album at RCA Studios in Los Angeles.  The band released the album Bayou Country in 1969.  The first single and the one that really got CCR rolling was "Proud Mary".  Fogerty served in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, Fort Knox, and Fort Lee.  His discharge from the army came in 1967, and John remembers it well, as told in Hank Bordowitz's book Bad Moon Rising:  The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival:

              The Army and Creedence overlapped, so I

              was "that hippie with a record on the radio".

              I'd been trying to get out of the Army, and 

              on the steps of my apartment house sat a

              diploma-sized letter from the government.  

              It sat there for a couple of days, right next

              to my door.  One day, I saw the envelope

              and bent down to look at it, noticing it said

              "John Fogerty".  I went into the house, 

              opened the thing up, and saw that it was

              my honorable discharge from the Army. I 

              was finally out! This was 1968 and people

              were still dying. I was so happy, I ran out 

              into my little patch of lawn and turned

              cartwheels. Then I went into my house,

              picked up my guitar and started

              strumming "Left a good job in the city" and

              then several good lines came out of me

              immediately. I had the chord changes,

              the minor chord where it says, "Big wheel

              keep on turnin'/Proud Mary keep on

              burnin'" (or 'boinin', using my funky

              pronunciation I got from Howlin' Wolf).  By

              the time I hit "Rolling, rolling, rolling on the

              river,' I knew I had written my best song.

"Proud Mary" has become the group's signature song, reaching #1 in Austria and #2 in the United States and Canada.

Despite selling over one million units, Billboard did not rank the flip side "Born On The Bayou", another highly underrated song.  Fogerty wrote it looking at nothing but the bare walls of his tiny apartment.  He played a Gibson ES-175 guitar, which was stolen from his car soon after recording the song.

"Bootleg" is about wanting what is not good for us.  "Why is it that those things that are really bad for you - candy, ice cream, alcohol - taste so good?", Fogerty wrote in his autobiography Fortunate Son:  My Life, My Music.  "Why is it that the things that we can't have we want even more?"  Tom Fogerty played acoustic guitar on the song.

"Thirty people lost their lives", we hear in the extended Blues number "Graveyard Train", before learning that the protagonist is going to be #31.

Creedence music sounds as good today on the radio as it ever did. It is timeless. We also want to feature "Penthouse Pauper", featuring great Blues guitar solos from John.

Bayou Country doubled the sales of their first album with two million.  "Keep On Chooglin'", which the band used to play a 15-minute version of to close their live shows, features all four members at their best--the great lead vocals and guitar from John, slashing rhythm from Tom, a pounding drum by Doug Clifford and that thumping bass line from Stu Cook.  "Chooglin'", which is a term believed to be invented by John, is a metaphor for sex. Enjoy the guitar interplay between John, Tom, and Cook.

"Lodi", the flip side of "Bad Moon Rising", became so popular in its own right that the group was forced to release it as a single four months before their next album. It tells the story of a Rock star who has seen better days and now people just get drunk and don't really listen to his songs.

Much more to come from this legendary supergroup exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!