John Fogerty Comes Home

by Andrew Lau

"I was trying to make records they would still play in ten years, I used to say that all the time, but that's about as far as I could see. [I was] twenty-three years old, how can I really be standing going: 'Thirty-five years from they're still going to play these things."

The friendly voice of John Fogerty is coming down the phone line. He's upbeat and forthcoming with answers…and why not? A legal battle that's lasted three decades is finally over and he's acquired the rights to his own songs once again. To top it off, Fogerty is releasing a career retrospective. Twenty-five tracks, one CD. The Long Road Home.

"The record company came [up with] the twenty-five number. If this was a normal CD, a new record and somebody came to me and said 'Yeah, there's twenty-five songs,' I'd look at them and go: 'booooooorrr-ring!' I don't buy records that are that long and I don't want to make records that are that long. Make two records, ya know, or edit yourself [laughs]"

Berkeley, California's Fantasy Records was once Fogerty's home, then his arch nemesis and, now that it's has been bought out by the Concord Music Group, his home once again. It's an odd tale, unlike anything you've probably heard. Concord/Fantasy is ultimately owned by Universal Music and has plenty of money to put behind the man and his music. Television/radio/print ads, billboards, in-flight audio/visual spots with three major airlines and a movie theater ad campaign that will reach an estimated 2.2 million people…not your run-of-the-mill marketing scheme.

"I think the greatest and nicest thing is [the label] supporting this music. They're proud of it…this hasn't happened for me in a long, long time."

His parents moved to the Bay Area from Montana in the 1940's bringing along a working class outlook that has stayed with John his whole life. While attending high school in El Cerrito, the sensitive kid from a newly broken home (his father had recently left) had taken refuge in rock & roll and met up with two like-minded kids, Doug Clifford and Stu Cook. The three of them soon found themselves playing with John's older brother, Tom. They were the Blue Velvets. Fantasy Records was just around the corner, literally, and John approached them about handling the band. They agreed and soon put out their first single, "Don't Tell Me No Lies". Ironic title. When the group got their hands on a copy they realized the label had changed their name to the Golliwogs without asking or telling the boys.

For John, the next few years consisted of marriage, fatherhood and a draft notice. He headed into the Army Reserves and six months of active duty but, luckily, no free trip to Southeast Asia. In between all that the band took on an arduous practice schedule morphing from their Top 40-playing, request-taking bar band into something altogether different as John slowly took over vocal duties from his older brother. Having grown into a singular, confident voice, he also had the ability to pull a southern drawl around chosen syllables to underscore his lyrical content. The band grew their hair and changed the name to Creedence Clearwater Revival. They avoided the acid rock trend and kept it simple and infectious: a swampy, down home, dirt-on-your-hands type of rock 'n roll with a seamless rhythm section and amazing lyrics that created imagery that might as well come from the pen of William Faulkner. Their first single, a jagged, guitar-laden cover of Dale Hawkins' "Susie Q", hit the charts quickly. The increasingly smug Bay Area rock scene yawned. Legend has it that during a soundcheck at the Avalon Ballroom in 1968, a stagehand cut the power on the band and sneered: "You guys aren't going anywhere."

"Give us one year," the confident Fogerty shot back.

1969 saw the band release an astounding three top ten LP's, Bayou Country (#7) in January; Green River (#1) in August and Willie & The Poor Boys (#3) in November) and four hit singles ("Proud Mary" (#2), "Bad Moon Rising"(#2), "Green River" (#2), "Down On The Corner" (#3)...they would have six the following year) all the while touring non-stop. Fogerty wrote, arranged and produced everything while managing the band's business affairs at the same time. "I see through working class eyes," he told Time magazine that year. Blue-collar music never sounded so good. They found themselves in the midst of a cultural revolution and played Woodstock. The boys yawned. Having no time for hippie drivel, they kept to their practical ways and pounded out hit after hit, outselling even the Beatles. International success.

Obviously, pressure was on and no group can withstand that level of quick notoriety. Tensions within the group started to show. John had a stranglehold and the others wanted creative and business control. They finally got it by 1971, but it was too late. Brother Tom had left by then and the band was finished as the sun rose on 1973.

Fogerty's first non-Creedence LP was a competent bluegrass-meets-swamp rock affair called the Blue Ridge Rangers. His name was nowhere on the cover and Fantasy didn't seem too interested in promoting it. None of the songs from the record appear on the The Long Road Home.

"No obvious reasons either way. Blue Ridge Rangers had one, maybe two radio songs, certainly 'Jambalaya'. You start thinking about this song and that song and suddenly you're up to about thirty…couldn't fit any more [laughs]."

After the release of his first proper solo album in 1975, Fantasy claimed Fogerty owned them his next three LP's for distribution outside the U.S. In order to free himself from an increasingly horrid contract, he signed away the rights to future CCR royalties. Crushed at the outcome of a promising career, Fogerty sank from view for the next ten years. In the meantime, Fantasy president, Saul Zaentz started to kick out shoddy compilation and live records to milk the Creedence cash cow. (One shoddy live LP, The Royal Albert Hall Concert had the be pulled and re-released as The Concert when it was discovered that the show was actually recorded at the Oakland Arena.)

"These songs live with me, inside me everyday, all the time. I'm the guy who wrote them …there was a long period where I was so hurt that I refused to play them in public and it was because they were so close to me."

As Fogerty hid away, his past work was being reexamined by an unlikely group of admirers. The politically motivated punk musicians of the early1980's were taken with Creedence's workingman's angle and simplistic approach to music. They saw the band as forebearers, not dinosaurs. One specific band from San Pedro, California covered their music numerous times and went as far as thanking them on the back of their LP jackets.

"It's great that other musicians from other times know about your music. When I was twenty-three years old, and therefore a fairly aggressive young punk and very politically aware, I think I felt just like these kids now or kids twenty years ago. Let's concern ourselves right now with the political arena: it's pretty fired up and controversial. If there was ever a time for young people to get pissed off and make music about it, right now is that time; it's very similar to what I was doing. It's a lot harder to do now than it was then. There were three television channels and a couple of radio stations and when you made a hit record, a lot of people heard it. Whereas now it's so fragmented that you could be a big success with your own crowd and your sister doesn't even know about you."

Fogerty emerged from his self-imposed exile with his second solo effort, Centerfield, which surprised everyone by shooting to number one with the help of the title track's chart success. Vindication. It was two other tracks on that record, however, that caused a bit more commotion. "Vantz Kan't Danz" is a simple sounding tune until you notice that the lyrics are about a pig that'll take your money, ("Watch him or he'll rob you blind"), a thinly veiled swing at Saul Zaentz who immediately took offense. A 140 million defamation lawsuit followed against Fogerty and Warner Brothers (it was settled out of court).

The second single released from Centerfield was the amazing "The Old Man Down The Road" that came with an infectious opening riff (and a fantastically odd video). Zaentz thought it was amazing, too. In fact, he thought it sounded so much like CCR's "Run Through The Jungle" (a song he happened to own the rights to) that he sued again, this time for copyright infringement. Basically, Zaentz sued John Fogerty for sounding like John Fogerty. In the groundbreaking trial that followed, a jury quickly saw that it was nothing more than a vendetta move and sided with the musician.

Since then, things have been a bit quieter. More solo work (Eye Of The Zombie (1996), Blue Moon Swamp (1997); Premonition (1998); Déjà Vu All Over Again (2004), and more critical accolades. There had always been rumors about Fantasy going up on the auction block, but nothing ever came of it. Nothing, that is, until it actually happened and the next thing Fogerty knew, he was reunited with his own back catalog.

"For a long time I looked at other people's careers and bought their box sets and thought, 'Well, I guess there's no question I'll ever be doing that.' It looked like it would never happen."

The Long Road Home isn't a box set, just a simple CD packed edge-to-center with hits songs.

"I just wanted them to flow in a natural way, that's all. I didn't have to consult three advertising firms. These are my children that I've protected for a long time, watched over. It just seemed to be obvious to me how to go about it. There's mood and what key they're in…all the things that a musician looks at. Happily they let me make the list."

The collection anchors mostly on Creedence material with four songs being newly recorded live versions from this past July during an east cost tour.

"[Keep On Chooglin'] is quite fun now…it's taken on a whole new life 'cuz I have many more riffs and guitar licks that I can play in there that weren't on the original track and it's kinda gotten a new vitality."

Ah yes, "Chooglin'", although it remains a favorite term, this reporter has no idea what it means.

"It's on the record: 'You got the ball and have a good time and that's what I call 'choo-ga-lin'. It was something that sounded good. It didn't exist before; it isn't something I heard somebody say. I was looking for a song you could do that kind of groove to, ya know? I wanted to have an actual song rather than just: 'Everyone play in E!' which I've also done [laughs]."

Another newly recorded classic is "Fortunate Son", a song that has eerily recouped its meaning these last few years.

"Since we knew that there would be two [versions of "Fortunate Son", the original 1969 studio version and a newly recorded live version] some would've had it: 'Well, let's start with 'Fortunate Son' and then end with it.' I kinda resisted that because it's putting undue emphasis on it and everybody is going to read into whatever history and blah-blah-blah…and I have a lot of other songs, too [laughs]. At the time I was writing the song it was very relevant and unfortunately, ironically, it's very relevant again."

A defiant two minute and twenty second rolling intensity bomb, chunk-a chunk-a chunk-ing its way into yer noggin' while he spits out lyrics: "Some-folks-inherit staaaaaaar-spangled-eyes…" Relentless. A fantastically successful anti-rich-white-boy-avoiding-the-draft song. Simple, to the point; it gets pissed and gets out.

Which brings us to the title track to his 2004 LP, Déjà Vu (All Over Again). While easily the sister song to "Fortunate Son", this one is miles away: quiet and somber. Where Fogerty "shouts from the mountain top" on "Fortunate Son", here he seems reticent, almost fearful that he has to deliver the same stupid news, sing another anti-war song once again.

"This song was channeled to me in the first place, all I could do is listen and it came to me quite unlike any other song ever, and that's what got me: that mournful, very sad sound before I even knew what it was about…and I wasn't going to change that [laughs]. Whoever sang this to me, whatever spirit or place this was coming from, I think it was somebody with great wisdom and also maybe great resignation and that's what I picked up on."

These two tracks sum up yesterday's John Fogerty and today's: same message, same point-of-view, slightly different musical approach. Plus an acute sense of the devastation a bad business deal can have on one's creativity. Fogerty still maintains a constantly optimistic attitude that has him laughing about the fact that all the hub-bub over his re-signing with Fantasy has thrown off focus on the real issue here:

" …I've got a record coming out on November 1st; this is really exciting."

After what he's been through that's quite an understatement. The Long Road Home is a rare nod to his past that couldn't have been easy. On top of perhaps the ugliest and longest legal battle in rock history, bad blood still stands between he and his former band mates, and his brother Tom died from tuberculosis in 1990 before they could make amends. Yeah, he's seen some of the worst aspects of being successful and survived and this new collection is nothing if not proof of that. John Fogerty isn't "back" in the classic sense since he's always been here (aside from that ten year gap of understandable hibernation) and he isn't about to disappear. No, John Fogerty is here to make music, plain and simple.