Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.Ī truly comprehensive overview of this wonderful band's most popular work, as well as a showcase for one of the truest and most distinctive voices in the annals of rock & roll, that of John Fogerty. Then go back and catch up with the more "obscure" stuff. Fifteen of these twenty songs went Top 10, and this is where anyone who snorts at the notion that Creedence was the greatest American band should start. Dave Marsh, The Rolling Stone Record Guide.Īl Green is the only other artist of the post- Pepper era to make great albums while scoring consistently on the singles charts, and like Green, Creedence is worth owning in a more public and archival configuration. Since then, it's all been repackages, except for the lamentable Live in Europe.Ĭhronicle is a fine singles anthology, but Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys are great rock records in their own right. Eventually, the group tried to achieve a communal balance, the other members of the quartet contributing songs to the final studio record, Mardi Gras, a noble but disappointing affair. Not all of this was unsuccessful, by any means - "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is more intense than any six minutes of Grateful Dead music on record - but still, his metier was the single. (Creedence arose from roughly the same town as the psychedelic bands, but came from much poorer families.) And after a time, Fogerty burned to prove that he was as much an artist as anyone in the Grateful Dead - he apparently did not know that he was already more - and the group tried to stretch out, to make nominally "progressive" music. Perhaps best of all were "Lodi," the story of a working rocker's depression at being stuck in another out-of-the-way gin mill and his determination to beat everyone, and "Fortunate Son," a stab at the privileged that only kids from the wrong side of the ultra-hip San Francisco area could have felt so sharply. Then began the flood: "Bad Moon Rising," "Born on the Bayou," "Commotion," Down on the Corner," "Green River," "Have You Ever Seen the Rain," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (an extended song that worked), "Proud Mary," "Travelin' Band" and "Who'll Stop the Rain." All of this occurred between 19, when the group fell apart. On its first album (Creedence Clearwater Revival), the band attempted to stretch out, as was then the fashion, but though the approach garnered a hit with "Suzie Q," an extended version of the Dale Hawkins classic, Creedence didn't really hit stride until Fogerty tightened up some three-minute songs.
Led by guitarist/vocalist/writer John Fogerty, the group simply pumped out classic rock singles, one after another, in much the same rockabilly spirit as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, adding some touches of New Orleans R&B and other relatively antediluvian sources. CCR broke up in 1972, and Fogerty's successful solo career spawned similar songs, sealing any existing doubts that he was the central songwriter in the band.Creedence Clearwater Revival was probably the greatest American singles band, one of the hardest-working American groups of any genre, and almost the only exponent of working-class sensibility in American rock & roll - particularly California rock & roll - after the advent of Haight-Ashbury and before the rise of punk.
Fogerty's vision of a good party was painted in the bouncy strut of "Down on the Corner," a song that proved that white boys could get funky.
In 1968, they changed their name and CCR's first album was a hit, largely due to the rustic rendition of "Suzie Q." While they were geographically close to the Haight-Ashbury scene, songs like "Fortunate Son" revealed that the band didn't identify with the prevalent counterculture (in part made up of trust-funded hippie kids at the time). Formed by John Fogerty in 1967 out of El Cerrito, Calif., the band released seven futile singles on Fantasy Records as the Golliwogs. Their gritty fusion of swamp pop, country rock, hillbilly soul, and a driving dose of Southern-inspired R&B gave the band their trademark "chooglin'" sound. Aside from Gram Parsons, no one has influenced Americana music as much as Creedence Clearwater Revival.