Centerfield (25th Anniversary)

John Fogerty’s music has always pined for a past that may or may not have been his own. With Creedence Clearwater Revival, he sang of the Louisiana Bayou from his porch in Northern California. This 1985 solo album served as his “comeback” after years of silence. He remembers Elvis (“Big Train (From Memphis)”), women (“Rock and Roll Girls”), the unfolding of his childhood to adulthood (“I Saw It On T.V.”) and even makes a few thinly veiled comments about his former record label president (“The Old Man Down the Road,” “Mr. Greed,”  “Vanz Kant Danz,” renamed because it was too close to identifying his real nemesis.) The 25th Anniversary Edition includes two heated bonus cuts with “I Confess” and “My Toot Toot,” both of which boil over with Fogerty’s powerful and gutsy vocals that never abandoned him after all those years spent out of the musical eye. Fogerty was always a master of concision and Centerfield is an economical tour de force. The emotions still come through at full force and the guitars shimmer with the same stately presence as the days of old.