Вопрос о группе Creedence.

2-=Zepplock=-
Ага мне это очевидно с детства. Недавно натолкнулся на даче на старый письменный стол которым я пользовался в школе. На нём неистребимо глубоко процарапано ножом "Effigy". Как вернулся домой- прослушал 38 раз))

Comments: Wrongly titled as Los Angeles studio session, this was a jam session at the factory in Berkeley CA., jan. 31,1970.

Есть предположение, что джем-сейшн происходил в помещении, изображенном на обложке "Cosmo's Factory". Там какие-то кулисы, аппаратура и т.д. По времени тоже совпадает, это был как раз период записи Cosmo's Factory.

Что касается названия Deep In The Blues, то возможно, это собственная выдумка бутлегеров. Во всяком случае, у Фогерти такой песни нет.

Вот здесь )

It should be obvious by now that Creedence Clearwater Revival is one great rock and roll band. Cosmo's Factory, the group's fifth album, is another good reason why.

Four of the eleven cuts have been on previous hit singles; John Fogerty wrote three of the remaining seven, only one of which, "Ramble Tamble," is unsatisfying. Apart from prolific writing, Fogerty's ability to consistently churn out good stuff is largely due to his penchant for rehearsing the band five days a week in a converted warehouse in Berkeley's industrial section. It's doubtless because of this that drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford refers to the group's studio as the factory.

The emphasis is not on modern derivatives but on authentic reproductions of, for example, Roy Orbison's vintage "Ooby Dooby." On "My Baby Left Me" the early-Elvis echo-chamber effect and the old Scotty Moore riffs on lead guitar reveal a considerable amount of careful study of the original. Both cuts hold up very well as straight rockabilly.

"Travelin' Band" qualifies for historical authenticity, even though Fogerty grafts new lyrics onto a modified "Reddy Teddy" melody. He lays down a very credible Little Richard vocal and arrangement, substituting a good tenor shriek for a trademark upper register vibrato. In the absence of machinegun triads on keyboard, he dubs in saxophone—which he now plays.

Besides saxophone, Fogerty is now learning all the other instruments he's always wanted to play. In addition to lead guitar and vocal on Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me" he drops in some fine blues piano riffs but apparently out of modesty keeps them pretty well buried in an easy-going, traditional arrangement. Elsewhere he picks dobro on "Lookin' Out My Back Door." Though not geared for a gut-level Creedence treatment, the song is good car music, great for summer and will probably be commercially successful.

"Who'll Stop the Rain" has the same commercial feel, and amounts to Fogerty's version of a sizable production number with a somber message delivered at a ballad's pace.

Fogerty shows equal facility on "Long As I Can See the Light," a fine composition with more saxophone work and a strong Otis Redding flavor. Released as a single, it could easily end up on soul station play lists, as did "Run Through the Jungle" before it.

It's another damn good album by a group which is going to be around for a long time. (RS 65)


JOHN GRISSIM



(Posted: Sep, 3 1970)

They say when you get lost in the woods, you should walk downhill until you find the river and then follow it to town. But for Creedence Clearwater Revival, America was never that simple. They showed you why on their third album, the August 1969 masterpiece Green River. John Fogerty sings about a river, pure and unpolluted, with the power to "let me remember things I don't know." But his green river is alive with the noise of all the drowned souls it carries -- the ghost cries of flatcar riders and crosstie walkers, Pharaohs and Israelites, husbands and gamblers. Creedence bang out nine great songs in under thirty minutes as the pastoral beauty of "Green River" flows into the sexy nightmare of "Sinister Purpose."


CCR got looser and jammier on Green River, soaking in the Northern California air, but they stood apart from the San Francisco psychedelic bands -- partly because of their blue-collar earthiness and partly because their drummer didn't suck. Fogerty's spit-and-growl voice was the purple-mountain majesty above the fruited plain of phenomenal rhythm section Doug Clifford and Stu Cook, California's answer to Wyman and Watts. The guys rambled their tamble while Fogerty ran down the road, chased by a tombstone shadow under a bad moon rising. Absurdly underrated as a lead guitarist -- just listen to his terrifying one-note solo in "Tombstone Shadow" -- Fogerty sang his hairy ass off in soulful ballads of struggles personal ("Lodi") and political ("Wrote a Song for Everyone"). Still, CCR were staunchly committed to the public pleasures of rock & roll, making music anyone could love at first listen, which is why their songs have been sung by everyone from Richard Hell to Def Leppard, from Tina Turner to the Minutemen, from the halls of Bonnie Tyler to the shores of Bon Jovi. In short, for a year or two there, Creedence were as great as any rock & roll band could ever be. (RS 840)


ROB SHEFFIELD

On the liner notes to their album, Ralph Gleason states: "Creedence Clearwater Revival is an excellent example of the Third Generation of San Francisco bands." Really more like Third Level— behind the Airplane, Dead, Quicksilver, Grape and all the others. The only bright spot in the group is John Fogerty, who plays lead guitar and does the vocals. He's a better-than-average singer (really believable in Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and a Half"), and an interesting guitarist. But there's nothing else here. The drummer is monotonous, the bass lines are all repetitious and the rhythm guitar is barely audible.

Fogerty can't carry the load by himself, and when he does get going, as in two or three spots on "Suzie Q.," their "big" number (over eight minutes long), he has no complementation from the other members of the group. He's no Albert King, but he plays a fine guitar at times. His singing on "Ninety-Nine and a Half" is beautiful. But even on that track, whenever it's suspended between riffs, the unimaginative drumming kills it. The whole record is unimaginative, poorly produced and a great waste of John Fogerty's talents.

"I Put A Spell On You" bears only a cursory resemblance to Alan Price's version, but maybe it's unfair to compare them with someone so polished and well-established. Even Eric Burdon casts a heavier "Spell."

"I'd rather hear an old man coughing than listen to their (CCR's) rhythm section," says San Francisco jazzman Paul deBarros.

But Fogerty's versatility keeps sneaking through. He even comes on with a little Jeff Beck-ish feedback on "Porterville." He's really the only redeeming quality on the record, and even he gets buried beneath the mediocre non-arrangements and un-inventiveness of the other members of the group.

I've heard them in person (they played free one day on campus in Berkeley), and they sounded much better than they do on their album. They should release "Ninety-Nine and a Half" as a single: I think it would tear up the Top-40 crowd and sell a million. Fogerty's a gas but Creedence Clearwater's Revival may not be worth it. (RS 14)


BARRY GIFFORD

(Posted: Jul, 20 1968)

Creedence Clearwater Revival's new LP suffers from one major fault—inconsistency. The good cuts are very good; but the bad ones just don't make it.

The group's sound is very reminiscent of that of the early Stones—hard rock, based in blues. John Fogerty carries the group with his good lead guitar, in addition to his good vocal and harp work. He also wrote all of Creedence's original songs, and arranged and produced the album. He probably swept out the studio when the recording was finished, too.

Despite John's dominance, the group has a solid overall sound. Stu Cook on bass, brother Tom Fogerty on rhythm guitar, and Doug Clifford on drums are all good musicians; they lay down a heavy backing for Fogerty, and the result is a very tight sound.

The main failing of the bad cuts is a lack of originality. "Graveyard Train" is a repeat of "Gloomy" on the first album. "Gloomy" wasn't worth much in the first place, and "Train," dragged out to eight minutes and thirty-two seconds, is simply boring. "Penthouse Pauper" is similar to "The Working Man," also on the first LP. The music and lyrics are good, but they've been heard before.

"Good Golly Miss Molly" is not nearly as exciting as Little Richard's original, though the group gets a good workout on this one. "Bootleg" is a good, short number which explains how something often becomes more attractive when it is illegal. Again, the lyrics are good. But even here, Fogerty uses the same riff as on "Keep On Chooglin." A few more fresh ideas would be helpful.

The good cuts do come off well. "Born On The Bayou" is a very bluesy thing which inspired the LP title. This contains some of John's best vocal work. "Proud Mary" is a good, easy-rolling song concerning a Mississippi river-boat. The Fogerty's guitars help to create a gentle, flowing mood. I take it that "Proud Mary" is the name of the boat.

"Keep On Chooglin'" is Creedence Clearwater Revival's "rave-up," a good, long, toe-tappin' type song. As is usually the case with such numbers, it sounds better in person than on record. Nonetheless, CCR has managed to capture some of the excitement of a live performance on this album. Exactly what chooglin' is, or how you do it, is not explained. However, Creedence Clearwater Revival would like us all to keep on doing it (apparently we've been doing it all along without knowing it) and it seems like a good idea in these troubled times.

Overall, the material in Bayou Country is not always strong, but Creedence Clearwater Revival plays with enough gusto to overcome this problem. With the stronger material, they are excellent. It seems to me though, that CCR has just about exhausted its supply of blues-rock numbers. They have produced two fine albums; so far, so good. But I think (and hope) that we will see new directions on their forthcoming albums. (RS 28)


RAY REZOS



(Posted: Mar, 1 1969)

Pendulum is yet another promising but unsatisfying album from America's best singles band. The tunes are good, the lyrics adequate with a few exceptions, and the musicianship of everyone in the band has improved. The flaws lie not in the album's technical qualities but its stiffness.

There appears to be something about John Fogerty's approach that is ideally suited for the demands of a three-minute single and out of place in the context of a 40-minute album. His taste is too predictable, his mind too tight, and his hand too heavy. Over a three-minute span tightness and orderliness can be virtues: over 40 minutes they can be deadening.

Pendulum is Creedence's attempt to prove that the album can be their medium too. On it they introduce John Fogerty's piano and sax playing as regular features while the use of background voices is expanded, and the range of the lyrics widened. The album opens with a rather lame imitation of their own earlier work called "Pagan Woman." almost as if they didn't want to throw the new stuff at us too soon. "Sailor Man," the second cut, retains something of the "Proud Mary" beat but offers us both piano and sax and a Beatle-like backing chorus.

On "Sailor Man" some of the stylistic nuances of the album emerge. The recording is perfectly clean, with each track separate and distinct. The vocals move but in a studied way: Fogerty's voice has none of the sway of his masterpiece. "Proud Mary." It sounds like a great deal of overdubbing was used and that technical perfection was sought at the expense of everything else. There is a mechanical quality to the sound of "Sailor Man" and much of the rest of the album that is almost inhuman in its cleanliness.

That sterile perfection mars "Molina," which appears to have been intended as a rocker in the "Travelin' Band" genre. "Chameleon" sounds a bit raunchier but the words are embarrassing. "Born to Move" is fun with its Booker T. styled organ and interesting bass and drums—Stu Cook and Doug Clifford have improved enormously. The instrumental "Rude Awakening No. 2" closes the album with something as far from their earlier style as "Pagan Baby" is close to it. Creedence's attempt at a collage is not only not very good, but wholly unnecessary. Why do they feel the need to do things like this when they do other things so well?

Happily the creative core of the album almost makes up for some of the lesser moments. "It's Just A Thought." "Hideaway," and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" all show Fogerty writing and the band performing in a slightly new way. "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" moves along evenly with a lovely bass piano figure while Fogerty's singing and lyrics offer an intense and personal statement heard effectively before only on "Wrote A Song For Everyone" (a very fine song from Green River) and "Long As I Can See The Light." "It's Just a Thought" has a cooled-out instrumental track again coupled with a more personalized statement, while "Hideaway" the best song on the album, maybe Creedence's first song that really deals with love. The singing, arrangement and extra nice fade-out here all work perfectly.

Finally, "Hey Tonight" doesn't sound that much like the Beatles to me, but it sure is a fine song, with everyone holding up their end and Fogerty in fine form.

Even at its best. Pendulum is marred by the overly precise arranging, performing, singing and mixing that seemed to have become Fogerty's trademark. All the elements of great rock and roll are present on some of this album and yet none of it ever becomes great rock and roll. It lacks the sense of humor that is the hallmark of all great rock and the loseness necessary for all the elements to gel into something that is consistently listenable.

It seems to me that somehow Creedence has gotten caught in the vicious cycle of trying too hard to please an audience that already buys more of their records than they do of anyone else's. On Pendulum they tried to prove they have got class. But they already proved that when they recorded "Proud Mary." Next time I hope they forget about what they think the audience wants and just do what they want to do. Who knows? Maybe it will turn out to be Green River with sex. I hope so. (RS 75)



JON LANDAU



(Posted: Feb, 4 1971)

2 Alex Red:
Неплохо было бы указать источник...
Эти рецензии опубликованы на сайте журнала Rolling Stone.

It was a benefit at the Fillmore West for KPFA, the Conscience and Culture radio station of Berkeley, and the place was filled much beyond the legal capacity. The bill was mixed; several eminent bores and some bands as talented as Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, a rising group that has succeeded in capturing the essence of country music.

But the crowd had come, virtually to a man, to see Creedence Clearwater. It was an overwhelmingly suburban audience, and from the remarks hovering in the air that was rank with sweat and deodorant-derivatives, most people had never heard of KPFA and would be scarcely impressed with it even if it was explained. "But, it's a vital part of the liberal-academic community, I tell you." So the clean-cuts and bouffants waited through several hours of barbiturate-rock. Only the light show and the passage of joints differentiated this show from 1960-Friday-Night-At-The-Boys'-Club.
(TBC)
When Creedence did come on, there was no stopping the audience. If you didn't manage to force your way to a point where you could barely see, you would have had no way of knowing whether Creedence was there or if their records were being played.

In all probability, there is no other rock group that can play its material so letter-perfect, exactly-like-the-record as Creedence. Even John Fogarty's harp solo on "Keep On Chooglin'" was note for note.

The crowd lived it, although spontaneity was as lacking in the crowd as in the band. Except for the dedication of "Bad Moon Rising" to R. Milhous Nixon, it was entirely predictable. As far as Fillmore groups go, it was more a demonstration than a performance. But, the crowd nearly became dangerous when Creedence refused to do an encore, and left in a bad mood.

Still, it was beautiful.

Song after song was clear, distinct and memorable. Lack of spontaneity can also be translated as lack of waste, and in the case of Creedence, it's the latter that's appropriate. They play songs. Period.

Creedence is simply not an improvising group (neither were the Beatles) and their approach is as successful as it is unusual. At this writing, they are the biggest draw in American rock. Their style and talents have also afforded them complete mastery of the AM radio. They think and play in terms of singles.

"A single means you've got to get it across in a very few minutes. You don't have twenty minutes on each side of an LP. All it really means is you've got to think a little harder about what you're doing. We learned from the singles market not to put a bunch of padding on your album. Each song's got to go someplace." So says John Fogarty, the heart and brains behind Creedence Clearwater.

There are those who feel that to write for the AM radio is a sign of either decadence or lack of talent. Fogarty:

"Most of this is a built-in uptightness ... 'Singles is what I dug when I was little, therefore I have to change now. I've grown up, I don't like top-40' ... which is dumb. Why not change top-40?"

This attitude and goal characterizes the Creedence-Fogarty position. They have chosen to play to the popular audience at as high a level as possible. They are open and aboveground. No group that comes to mind has relied less on funk, esoterica, cultism, charisma or extravaganza and made it work so well, so successfully and so artfully. And this seems due to the talent and vision of John Fogarty and to the fact that Creedence has been together, playing rock, for ten years.

John Fogarty, as singer, lead guitar and songwriter, melds the band; Creedence's style must, therefore, be largely his style, just as the Byrds' style is that of Roger McGuinn. Fogarty's singing is utterly distinctive, his guitar playing is expressive and unadorned, and his songwriting is rarely matched.

Fogarty's voice has ferocious power and an edge on it that can cut through the worst static on the cheapest car radio. He growls and shouts and scats. His range is not great, but neither is Mick Jagger's.

"When I first started singing, I really couldn't imitate anyone, because I didn't sound like anybody. The first song I really sang a lot with the band was 'Hully-Gully.' It happened to be in the right range for me and it sounded all right.... It was physically impossible for me to sound like a lot of the people I dug." He especially liked Little Richard and Howling Wolf, and slight ghosts of both can be detected in his style.

His guitar work isn't innovative; rather it's very solid and frequently beautiful. It complements and accompanies his singing and seems to spring from the same source and sound. "My favorite guitar player ... and I only based it on two records I had ... was Carl Perkins. Also Scotty Moore. Low boogie line stuff." Those elements are all present in John's guitar playing, but it's difficult to hear any particular source. After ten years, it's Creedence Clearwater.

As Creedence must have come a long way in their first eight years, they have come an equal distance since their first record. All too frequently, a group surfaces with an excellent album that proves to be the consummation of their talents and thereafter goes downhill. Parital proof that Creedence is no flash in the pan, as too many rock sophisticates tend to think, is that their albums have improved with each subsequent release. Willy And The Poor Boys is the best one yet.

Folk saying to the contrary, you can tell it's a good record just from the cover. The picture of the group standing around in front of Duck Kee's market in grungy West Oakland replete with gut-bucket bass, washboard, ol' git'ar an' mouf harp. Couple teeny little black kids standing around.

The picture was, in fact, shot about a block from the Fantasy studios. While the shooting was going on, they were fooling around on the jug-band instruments. They played something they liked, went back to Fantasy, cut it, and put it on the album. It appears as "Poorboy Shuffle" and while it won't eclipse Gus Cannon and the Jug Stompers, it is pleasant and might even turn on some kid enough to pursue some real jug band music.

The rest of the album is in the basic Clearwater mode, but with considerably more variation and imagination than Creedence has previously produced. There are probably six hit singles on the album; when Fogarty says, "We try to fill our albums with as many hits as possible," he means it.

"Down On The Corner" and "Fortunate Son"; you know those. Two of the other cuts are fully as powerful, and with regard to content, probably the most interesting things Creedence has done. Fogarty regards rock as being 80 per cent sound and beat; the other 20 per cent is worth playing around with. At this point, he feels no need to confine himself to love and its many distorted forms as subject matter.

The first two albums had no songs that could be construed as even slightly political. Green River had a couple of quasi-social songs. Willy has three songs of political impact, the most obvious being "Fortunate Son." Yet Fogarty denied that he was a more political person than he had been. "They put too much weight on political references in songs. They think a song will save the world. That's absurd." Yet, at the same time he passionately believed that a song could have a message. This curious paradox can be resolved by listening to "It Came Out Of The Sky," which is message and comment without moralizing. It is also a very funny song, as funny as Dylan at his best. That's aside from being just a great rock song.

Fogarty's lyrics are usually difficult to distinguish—"A lot of the fun of rock is trying to figure out what he said"—but these are worth it.

The song is worth repeating in its entirety:

Well, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline.

Jody got out of the tractor, couldn't believe what he seen;

Laid on the ground and shook for fearin' for his life;

Then he ran all the way to town screamin' It Came Out Of The Sky.

Well, the crowd gathered round and the scientists said it was marsh gas;

Spiro came and made a speech about raisin' the Mars tax;

Vatican said, "Well, the Lord has come";

Hollywood rushed out an epic film;

Ronnie the Popular said it was a Communist plot.

The newspapers came and made Jody a national hero;

Walter and David said put him on a network TV show;

White House said put the thing in the Pool Room;

Vatican said, "No, it belongs to Rome."

Jody said it's mine but you can have it for 17 million.

Copyright (C) 1969 by Jondora Music.

Comment would be superfluous. Yet, it shows at what Fogarty is superb—compression. He's managed to get three worlds of paranoia into one short, entertaining, musical song. If he fails to take the subject very seriously, well, to steal a quote, "it's too serious not to be taken humorously."

"Don't Look Now, It Ain't You Or Me," despite what was said before, is a song that both questions and moralizes. "Who takes the coal from the mines? / Who takes the salt from the earth? / Who makes the promise you don't have to keep? / Don't look now, it ain't you or me."

Why does that matter?

"Why does that matter? That's exactly why I wrote the song. We're all so ethnic now, with our long hair and shit. But, when it comes to doing the real crap that civilization needs to keep it going . . . who's going to be the garbage collector? None of us will. Most of us will say, 'That's beneath me, I ain't gonna do that job.'"

OK, it's a pretty straight point of view and one that can be used (and is used) against us all. But, it's one that is important, and it's to Fogarty's credit that he attempts to deal with it. His vision is broader than that of most rock lyricists. The song is simple and probably the most beautiful on the record.

Creedence dug up a couple of Kingston Trio era songs, "Cottonfields" and "Midnight Special," and added life to them. They don't sound bastardized nor do they sound as if they were crammed into the Creedence sound, nor do they sound folk-rock. They simply sound good. Either or both will, in all likelihood, make the top of the charts.

"Side of the Road" is an instrumental that just shows Fogarty to be one of prettiest-playing rock guitarists. Maybe the future will show more invention and longer sustained pieces.

The remainder of the tracks aren't much to talk about but make fine listening. You can dance to them, too.

Despite the variety present in Willy And The Poor Boys, there are those who still insist that it all sounds the same. Rather than point out that all banjo music or all classical music or all rock music sounds the same unless you listen to it, I just take bets on who'll be around in five years ... and it won't be Ten Years After. (RS 50)


ALEC DUBRO

(Posted: Jan, 21 1970)

In the future, Mardi Gras may be known as Fogerty's Revenge. After all the carping about his egotism, and after the published complaints from his co-workers about his hogging the show, he has done what I never thought he would: allowed his cohorts to expose themselves in public. Ceding six of the new album's ten selections to drummer Doug Clifford and bassist Stu Cook may have been an invitation to artistic suicide for them, but it sure proves that John was right all along. Commercially, it leaves him trying to answer the new $64 Creedence Clearwater Revival question: will the group be able to survive the catastrophe? And who will really care?

Bassist Stu Cook's three selections are bad enough to qualify as offensive. Ringo Starr may not have much of a voice, but when he sang a song on a Beatle album, it had its own special charm. Cook, on the other hand, offers us his humorless tunes and painful voice as if they are able to stand on their own, self-sufficient as interesting music. Coasting on the name of the group, he is now able to force onto a sure-selling album music that wouldn't qualify him for a good local high school band. That a musician of Fogerty's stature is backing him up is depressing; that we are forced to listen to Cook instead of Fogerty, insulting.

Drummer Doug Clifford fares substantially better. He has been influenced by Fogerty himself, and at his best we can recognize something approaching Creedence's style. His "What Are You Gonna Do" is a listenable enough song, and one is left wondering how good it might have been if someone with a really good voice and a distinctive approach sang it–someone like Fogerty himself.

Usually, when a group is a mixture of talent and mediocrity–as Creedence has generally been recognized to be–the talent tries to elevate the mediocrity. And, happily, at their best, that has been Creedence's history. On Mardi Gras we find the process reversed and the artist brought down to the level of the hacks that surround him. Fogerty's four songs are regrettably almost completely marginal to the body of fine work he has created in the past.

"Sweet Hitch Hiker" is marred by the stiffness so characteristic of later Creedence, from Willy and the Poor Boys onward. The cover version of "Hello Mary Lou" is one of the silliest he has attempted; his try at copying James Burton's superb guitar ride on the Ricky Nelson original was a hopeless botch. As for his two new songs, "Looking for A Reason" is a nice, light bit of fluff and "Someday Never Comes" is the album's one reasonably satisfying song, a good tune marred by a boring, unimaginative arrangement.

The album's desired level of submediocrity extends not just to the songs and vocals but the arranging, performance and sound as well. The mix is part of the new democratic spirit; much of it sounds like it was done by a computer to insure that no one instrument would be louder than any other. The rhythm instruments (mainly Fogerty overdubs) are generally down so low they are only semi-audible, a further indication that the band has not successfully converted from quartet to trio.

If the group's music ever tended to colorlessness in the past, Mardi Gras completes that tendency altogether–nothing fresh, imaginative, different, or pleasantly unexpected occurs from beginning till end. And if Fogerty's music ever tended to be schizophrenic in the past, it is sad to realize that the struggle is over and that all of his negative tendencies–especially his musical stiffness, masquerading as professionalism–has won out.

Mardi Gras is from the same people (minus one) who gave us "Suzy Q," "Proud Mary," "Born on the Bayou," "Green River," "Commotion," "Wrote a Song for Everyone," "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi," "Down on the Corner," "Fortunate Son," "Up Around the Bend," "Travelin' Band," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and "Long As I Can See the Light." There is not a single song or performance on it that deserves to stand in that list. Pendulum was a disappointment but it was honest and it was useful–just because it showed Fogerty reaching for new directions. On this album he seems to have just given up. The result is, relative to a group's established level of performance, the worst album I have ever heard from a major rock band. (RS 109)


JON LANDAU



(Posted: May, 25 1972)

This poorly recorded double-record set shows John Fogarty's musical personality in a somewhat different light from his studio recordings. Although he runs through the songs with characteristic discipline, he seems looser and occasionally more energetic than usual. Playing in front of enthusiastic crowds in 1971, he was less inhibited and the resulting sense of freedom elevates the performances of most of the uptempo material—although he and the band then prove unable to calm themselves down sufficiently to handle the subtler, moderate-paced numbers, the lovely "Lodi" suffering most in the process. The nine-song run-through of hits that fills sides two and three is often fun, even if only "Hey Tonight" adds anything substantial to its original studio-recorded version.

The tightness of the performance of the singles hits is undercut by the longer performances on sides one and four. I dislike songs based on a single chord and find both "Born on the Bayou" and "Keep On Chooglin'" rather dull as a result. That latter takes up the entire last side and is marred by a terrible harp solo, limited melodic content and repetitiveness. But, like several other cuts, it gives ample room for Fogarty's exceptional rock-rhythm guitar playing, and it contains a nice move into "Pagan Baby," as well as some good, simple rock dynamics.

Fogarty's voice doesn't wear well over the four sides and the inability of bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford to supplement it with anything else of interest is far more apparent in concert than it ever was in the studio. The gap between his and their abilities provides the obvious explanation for the group's demise. (RS 153)


JON LANDAU



(Posted: Jan, 31 1974)

When I was growing up in New York City, Creedence Clearwater Revival was the closest we ever got to America. Their stream of Top Forty singles–each with a homely, supple guitar riff pulling it into focus–tapped into the notion of rugged populism the way the Band summed up the idea of the loner. John Fogerty's songs made protest seem patriotic and good times sound just as essential as getting by, while giving other, less self-consciously frenetic parts of the country an almost tangible, smoky presence. And Fogerty's own homey slur lent credence to the anyone-can-do-it, dare-you democracy that was always supposed to be (but usually wasn't) at the heart of both the nation and rock & roll.

These days, the nearest equivalent to Creedence's grass-roots anthems are Bruce Springsteen's less mystical, more mythic urban sagas, so it's only fitting that Springsteen has been covering "Who'll Stop the Rain" in concert. His version is brash, dashing and suitably bittersweet, but it makes you long for another dose of the original. Thank goodness, then, for Creedence Clearwater Revival's The Concert, newly mined from the vaults of Fantasy, a live album that captures the group circa 1970 – all raw edges, roar and spunk. If the populist gusto of John Fogerty's tunes hasn't dated a bit, neither has the band's bluesy drive. This LP (recorded in California, not London, as was first claimed) finds Creedence playing like new blood brothers, with the kind of companionable leeway that's more affecting than precision. Fogerty's vocals are a mixture of wolf howls, amiable hunkering and linked-arms strut.

The Concert would be an instant bargain even if it were only a nostalgia item: a $5.98 list price for fifty minutes of music, including a chugging "Night Time Is the Right Time," several raunchy jams (a nine-minute whirl through "Keep on Chooglin'," for example) and fine, gritty treatments of almost every Creedence Clearwater Revival hit you can name, from "Travelin' Band" to "Green River" to an especially pithy "Fortunate Son." Myself, I miss "Lodi," but what the hell? The Concert is such an unexpected, you-can-go-home-again pleasure that nobody should quibble. (RS 345)


DEBRA RAE COHEN

Вот была в своё время у меня пластина группы Creedence... Помню, на ней нарисованы были музыканты, грабящие почтовый поезд. Так вот, на этой сборке все песни были в другой аранжировке, более качественной, чем в оригинале. Который год гоняюсь за этим альбомом, самое странное, что в дискографии его нету. А назывался он вроде Greatest Hits. Все хитсы на CD это не то. Может у кого есть информация по этому поводу?

Наверное ты прав. Очень напоминает как Звёзды 45 Битлз перепели. Запись была очень профессиональная, да и пластина фирменная. Штож, придётся обломаться...