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  3. Thankyou young Saucecraft, now Concheroo could you answer my question? And while I’m at it, pick up your books and move to another desk as far away from Saucecraft; he has done nothing but distract you since he came back to the blog.

  4. Impossible to know the rights and wrongs of this sorry saga, but whenever he talks about it, Fogerty does seem implacably bitter, unforgiving, and convinced of his own rightness throughout. Which may be justified – who knows? – but you can’t help feeling he could maybe show a little more grace. What is beyond dispute is that he was the talent in that band and Cook and Clifford were spectacularly lucky to be able to ride on his coat-tails for a few years.

    • He was clearly the talent, I agree with your summary of his attitude. However, “ride on his coat-tails” is a bit harsh, a band is more than just the main guy and others.

  5. If half of what JF says is true then he has a lot of justification for his stance.

    Re the band, I’ve seen him post CCR, his voice is remarkable and sings all the songs bang on, but still it is not quite the same as having the original band. Is it the frisson, of band members and of audience?

  7. Don’t know much about the band really, but who doesn’t like a good rock feud? This from wiki (from a 1997 Swedish magazine article) suggests that John Fogerty may have had some control issues.

    “I was alone when I made that [Creedence] music. I was alone when I made the arrangements, I was alone when I added background vocals, guitars and some other stuff. I was alone when I produced and mixed the albums. The other guys showed up only for rehearsals and the days we made the actual recordings. For me Creedence was like sitting on a time bomb. We’d had decent successes with our cover of ‘Susie Q’ and with the first album. When we went into the studio to cut ‘Proud Mary,’ it was the first time we were in a real Hollywood studio, RCA’s Los Angeles studio, and the problems started immediately. The other guys in the band insisted on writing songs for the new album, they had opinions on the arrangements, they wanted to sing. They went as far as adding background vocals to ‘Proud Mary,’ and it sounded awful. They used tambourines, and it sounded no better.

    That’s when I understood I had a choice to make. At that point in time we were just a one hit wonder, and ‘Susie Q’ hadn’t really been that big a hit. Either this [the new album] would be a success, something really big, or we might as well start working at the car wash again. There was a big row. We went to an Italian restaurant and I remember that I very clearly told the others that I for one didn’t want to go back to the car wash again. Now we had to make the best possible album and it wasn’t important who did what, as long as the result was the very best we could achieve. And of course I was the one who should do it. I don’t think the others really understood what I meant, but at least I could manage the situation the way I wanted. The result was eight million-selling double-sided singles in a row and six albums, all of which went platinum. And Melody Maker had us as the best band in the world. That was after the Beatles split, but still. … And I was the one who had created all this. Despite that, I don’t think they understood what I was talking about. … They were obsessed with the idea of more control and more influence. So finally the bomb exploded and we never worked together again.”

    And then there’s this on their Woodstock performance:

    Their set was not included in the Woodstock film or soundtrack because John Fogerty felt the band’s performance was subpar. (Several tracks from the event were eventually included in the 1994 commemorative box set.) Stu Cook, however, held an opposing view, saying “The performances are classic CCR and I’m still amazed by the number of people who don’t even know we were one of the headliners at Woodstock ’69.”[15] John Fogerty later complained the previous band, the Grateful Dead, put the audience to sleep; as John scanned the audience he saw a “Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.”

  8. I’m with Fogerty all the way. He was completely and shamefully ripped off by the scumbag Zaentz and lost the rights to his own songs. The rest of the band were no-marks, with little discernible talent. He’s a great songwriter, singer and guitarist.
    A show of his that I went to at the Ham Odeon about a decade ago remains one of the most exciting gigs I’ve ever witnessed. Stellar talent.

  9. Couldn’t agree more ianess. To write that many hits is phenomenal. Saw him supporting Springsteen at Hyde Park and then joining him on stage – even the songs that didn’t make the charts are universally known. Not many artists can say that. Then post CCR he releases Centerfield which is as good as any CCR album. Just think of the royalties he gets from that title track alone that is played at every game at every baseball ground in the USA. Shouldn’t think he needs to worry about the other two numpties.

    • Of course he also wrote Rocking All Over The World which provided the most apt opening song to Live Aid in 85 courtesy of Status Quo (Fogerty’s version is better).
      It’s a tragic story ‘cos I really loved that band, but I’ve always taken John’s side. I have a degree of sympathy for Tom though. It must have been hard to handle having a younger brother with all the talent. Mind you, he was the looker in the band so he probably got laid more than the others.

  10. No question, he is one of the geniuses of American rock and roll, and one of my all time heroes. His catalogue of songs with Creedence and solo is right up there – better than any U.S. rock artist after Dylan and Springsteen I’d suggest. But I agree that he comes across as a control freak (that’s part of his genius) and still feeling a deep rancour. That may be understandable but it’s still pretty sad.

  12. Here’s a very CCR-sounding Fogerty solo track. Can you spot the missing ingredients provided by the other three which were so vital to the genuine Creedence sound?
    Me neither.

  13. I understand the comments about JF holding on to his resentments for such a long time, but only to a degree. He had his life’s work stolen from him by a lying, cheating, greedy weasel of a label boss. He then becomes further embroiled in a fall-out with his sibling who, incredibly, takes the side of the boss. The self-recrimination, in addition to the shame and embarrassment that JF must have felt at his naivety in signing such an onerous contract must have been immense.
    He must have since been chiseled out of tens of millions for the songs he’d written in that glorious burst of creativity. I’ve had a long and varied career, but I know many others could have filled the roles I took. No-one else could have written the songs Fogerty wrote and it’s a damn shame that he and his family are denied the fruits of these.

  14. Spoiler Alert.

    4 hours into the audiobook version of Fogerty’s autobiography and it’s fascinating stuff.

    For example, he talks endlessly about the records he listened to while growing up. I was astonished to learn that the first 45 he bought was Death Of An Angel by Donald Woods and the Vel-aires from 1955.

    Now, that’s only the second time I’ve ever heard that name in my life. The first time was when I tracked down the original version of the Frank Zappa track The Man From Utopia.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IatOUU5bQMk

    I’m just up to the Golliwogs stage, slightly pre-Creedence.

    It seems the name was foisted on them without consultation and the first they knew about it was when the Golliwogs debut single was released. Fogerty claims that the word “Golliwog” is not in common usage in America and no one in the band knew what it meant. He says it was picked by the management to sound “British” (the Beatles had just arrived in America) and then goes into a long-winded explanation of the meaning/origin of the word, with heavy emphasis on British colonialism, most of which was news to me.

    Although Fogerty is generous to a fault in his praise towards other artists (even Chubby Checker and Sonny & Cher are treated with kid gloves) the other CCR band members don’t come out of this at all well so far and they haven’t even become famous yet.

    Brother Tom was only interested in light, poppy music it seems, skinsman Doug had no idea how to play a shuffle even as late as 1967, while bassist Stu had little interest in music and had to be painstakingly taught how to play the most basic parts by Fogerty.

    I can only imagine how nasty this is going to get as the betrayal and corruption unfolds.

    Stay tuned.

  15. More Spoilers:

    I’m almost at the end now and as @ianess said above, no wonder Fogerty is bitter. He was ripped off at every step by his record company (at one point in 1969 CCR records accounted for 95% of Fantasy Records’ total sales) and betrayed by his band and his brother.

    JF is keen to point out that CCR were the biggest band in the world in 1969, bigger than The Beatles, even. While he has nothing but praise and admiration for the Fabs, he likes to point out that they had three great singers, two great writers, one good writer and a drummer with personality to burn. CCR, meanwhile, had nothing but Fogerty. He was the entire band, really. The others were little short of dead wood, holding him back every step of the way.

  16. Spoiler Alert”

    I’m 75% into the audiobook and we’ve reached a nadir.

    John Fogerty’s wife Julie has started reading and we’ve entered the world of Mills & Boon.

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard/read such soppy, cloying, romantic claptrap this side of a warehouse full of True Romance magazines.

    Thankfully, I’m out the other side now and we’re back into the rancour, bitterness and resentment toward Saul Zaentz which has been the main theme of the book thus far.

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