Latest Release
- OCT 24, 2024
- 10 Songs
- Pendulum · 1968
- Willy and the Poor Boys · 1968
- Green River · 1969
- Bayou Country · 1969
- Cosmo's Factory · 1970
- Willy and the Poor Boys · 1968
- Cosmo's Factory · 1970
- Cosmo's Factory · 1970
- Green River · 1969
- Cosmo's Factory · 1970
Essential Albums
- John Fogerty & Co. were on a tear in 1969, releasing three albums and touring constantly. By early 1970, the first singles from Cosmo’s Factory began leaping up the charts. The album is so packed with classics—from the inspired covers of Roy Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby” and Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” to originals "Travelin' Band," "Lookin' Out My Back Door," and "Who'll Stop the Rain"—that you'd be forgiven mistaking this multi-platinum studio album for a greatest-hits compilation.
- It's pretty remarkable that this Bay Area crew had never even visited the South until they tasted fame. This 1969 album is an ode to Southern roots music that touches on a diverse array, from country-gospel ("Cotton Fields") and rockabilly ("It Came Out of the Sky") to New Orleans blues-funk (the title track) and street corner shuffle ("Feelin' Blue"). The corking "Fortunate Son," one of the album's two radio hits, remains one of a handful of Vietnam-era protest tunes to retain bite and relevance today. This largely fun and breezy affair may lack the paranoid edge and blue-eyed soul numbers that mark their best work, but it's easily among the prolific CCR's top three records.
- CCR were at the height of their powers in 1969, Green River being the second of three LPs the band would release that year. Having found their sound on Bayou Country, Fogerty and crew fully step into their own with this release, which features the timeless singles "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi," and of course the title track. Willy and the Poor Boys would soon follow, keeping up the band's ferocious pace, but if you had to pick just one CCR album, this should be it.
Albums
- 1972
- 1969
Artist Playlists
- Fogerty's blend of R&B, folk, and country makes CCR the archetypal roots rock band.
- The country rockers' legacy just keeps on rollin'.
- A simmering gumbo of rock, blues, and R&B that served up the ‘60s roots icons.
Live Albums
More To Hear
- Festive cheer with music from Elvis Presley and Elliott Smith.
- The horror movie icon joins Josh and plays her favorite jams.
About Creedence Clearwater Revival
This Bay Area quartet dropped seven hit albums during a remarkable five-year run starting in 1968, pushing aside the Summer of Love psychedelia that surrounded them to lay the foundations for what eventually became roots rock. The members of the band had played together for nearly a decade as The Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs prior to renaming themselves Creedence Clearwater Revival. The flannel shirts worn by frontman John Fogerty, who wrote and sang all of CCR’s original material, came to symbolize a blue-collar aesthetic embedded in the group’s unfussy arrangements and songs celebrating working-class struggles (“Proud Mary”) and lodging anti-war plaints (“Fortunate Son”). The men had never experienced the American South, yet they nonetheless built their sound upon the musical traditions of Mississippi and Louisiana, with an unadorned collision of blues, R&B, and swamp rock. Fogerty’s soulful, raspy howl presided over stripped-down grooves leavened by amped-up guitar solos, and he complemented his indelible writing with inventive covers of early rock ’n’ roll and blues gems like “Suzie Q” and “I Put a Spell on You.” The group acrimoniously disbanded in 1972, but over the decades, CCR emerged as spiritual forefathers for post-punk groups like The Minutemen and Hüsker Dü, unencumbered by trappings of the late ’60s.
- ORIGIN
- El Cerrito, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1959
- GENRE
- Rock