THE NEW YEAR is just a few weeks old and John Fogerty is driving with his wife and manager, Julie, along a stretch of California highway. But as the road unwinds ahead of him, his thoughts are drifting back several decades, to 1969, as he recalls in vivid detail the albums and events that made it a banner year for his band Creedence Clearwater Revival.
“Well, first of all,” Fogerty says, “I don’t think at the beginning of 1969 I had a business plan outlined that said, ‘Okay, we’ll release an album in January, we’ll release one in August, we’ll release another in October…’ I don’t think I had any plan like that. When you’re 22 years old, you can’t see that far ahead.”
In hindsight, however, CCR’s 1969 was remarkable and certainly without precedent in the rock and roll era. It’s when the quartet — Fogerty, his older brother Tom, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford — reigned as rock’s biggest act, kings on both the AM and FM dials, on the concert circuit and in critical circles. And, of course, CCR played the Woodstock festival that year, too. By some accounts, they were the very first band signed to the bill.
The tally was, in fact, three albums: Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys. All three hit the Top 10 on the Billboard chart, with Green River making it to number one, and all were eventually certified multi-Platinum. They produced four top-five singles — “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Green River” and “Down on the Corner” — all of which have gone on to become pop music standards.
“It was certainly very special,” Fogerty says now, chuckling at his own understatement. “If I’m looking back, it was absolutely precious and mind boggling. But at the time it was all kind of mixed up in the feeling that if you work really hard and keep moving forward and keep pushing, you will find success. You will fulfill your dream.”
It was in El Cerrito, California, where that dream began, where the guitar-playing Fogertys were raised and where John met drummer Clifford and bassist Cook at Portola Junior High School. The trio formed a band called the Blue Velvets, which also backed Tom Fogerty at the time. One Blue Velvets song was even played on KEWB in nearby Oakland by a then-local DJ named Casey Kasem. Renamed first Vision and then the Golliwogs, the group signed to the Bay Area–based Fantasy Records label a full four years before CCR would release its first album on the imprint.
In between, John and Clifford served in the U.S. Army and Coast Guard reserves, respectively. Upon their discharge the Golliwogs became CCR at the behest of new, soon-to-be-reviled Fantasy owner Saul Zaentz, the Clearwater part of their name inspired by a television commercial for the local Olympia Brewing Company. CCR made the charts with their first single, a guitar-blazing rendition of Dale Hawkins’ “Suzie Q,” followed by a feverish cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” that put Fogerty’s lead work to the fore.
But while his six-string skills were a highlight of 1968’s album, Fogerty’s songwriting talents were somewhat less evident. That changed the following year with the release of the group’s next three albums, where Fogerty blossomed into a generational songwriter with a gift for scene, character, mood and efficient storytelling. We certainly felt like we were rollin’ on the river when we listened to
