John Fogerty

At age 14, John Fogerty recruited his brother and a pair of school friends to form an R&B cover band called The Blue Velvets, which would later become Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR). ∙ “Proud Mary” was a huge hit for Ike & Tina Turner in 1971 and is one of more than a dozen Top 10 songs—and one of two Grammy Hall of Fame inductees—that Fogerty wrote for CCR. ∙ Written after his own military service during the Vietnam War, Fogerty’s 1969 CCR song “Fortunate Son” has since become both a protest anthem and pop culture shorthand for antiwar sentiment. ∙ The title track of his No. 1 solo album, 1985’s Centerfield, has become so ubiquitous at ballparks that he performed it at the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2010 induction ceremony. ∙ He spent years traveling to the Mississippi Delta, seeking inspiration and learning to play the dobro and bottleneck guitar for his 1997 album, Blue Moon Swamp, which won a Grammy Award. ∙ Rolling Stone listed him as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, and he is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. ∙ Hoping to correct what he felt were inaccurate portrayals in the media, he wrote the 2015 memoir Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music, which made The New York Times Best Seller list.