{"id":1669,"date":"2019-10-15T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T20:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2019-10-15T20:27:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T20:27:13","slug":"ftv-ccr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1669","title":{"rendered":"FTV: CCR"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the title of this FTV led you instantly to Creedence Clearwater Revival, you are two thirds correct.\u00a0 This CCR could be Creedence Clearwater Revisited (for the sake of both brevity and clarity, we shall refer to them as CCR2).\u00a0 One can\u2019t really talk about CCR2 without talking about CCR, so it is probably wise that we save 24 or 25 letters per mention while untangling this confusing web.\u00a0 As with many of the band stories presented in this space, this one is complicated. When CCR\u2019s <\/span>Complete Studio Albums Deluxe Box Set<\/span><\/i> was released in November of 2018, <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine <\/span><\/i>sat down with drummer Doug \u2018Cosmo\u2019 Clifford and bassist Stu Cook (both of CCR & CCR2) to discuss what Clifford\u2019s wife calls, \u201cthe saddest story in rock\u2019n\u2019roll.\u201d\u00a0 Cook describes it as, \u201cthe most stupid feud in rock history.\u201d Fortunately, the joy they found playing the music again helped temper some of the hard feelings, but how does one totally forget when they are party to one of the biggest career crash and burns in music history?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is hard to believe that one of the most successful bands of the late 1960s\/early 1970s could implode as completely as CCR did.\u00a0 Made up of Clifford, Cook, and brothers Tom (the elder) and John Fogerty, they weren\u2019t typical of the late sixties bands that sprouted from the fertile San Francisco music scene.\u00a0 While other bands were trending toward spaced out psychedelic jams, CCR wrote top forty songs while sporting the flannel shirt look long before it reappeared with Seattle\u2019s \u2018grunge\u2019 scene.\u00a0 As they clawed their way up the record charts between 1968 and 1972, CCR scored seventeen hit songs and five consecutive top-five albums. Few are aware they were one of the headliners at the original Woodstock Festival, mostly because John Fogerty would not sign off to let their performance be used in the film or album of the event.\u00a0 He thought CCR\u2019s performance was subpar (as Cook recalls, it was, \u201cA typical CCR live set\u201d). Fogerty missed a golden opportunity to be part of a film\/album combo that is still racking up sales numbers fifty years down the line. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time John Fogerty made a disastrous band decision on behalf of the whole group. Clifford hints at what happened to the band:\u00a0 \u201cThe best times were early on when we overcame every obstacle except success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first seeds of trouble were sown when the band\u2019s label, Fantasy Records was sold to Saul Zaentz.\u00a0 He funded the band and rightly suggested a name change from \u2018The Golliwogs\u2019 to \u2018Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019.\u00a0 Their original five percent record deal from 1964 wasn\u2019t terrific and even when Zaentz raised it to ten percent in 1967, his label retained the band\u2019s publishing rights.\u00a0 John Fogerty felt that he, as the principle songwriter\/hitmaker, had leverage to speak for the band. In truth, he failed miserably negotiating with Fantasy on behalf of the band. Even as the royalties rolled in, Fogerty refused to hire a lawyer, refused a deal offering the band ten percent of the record company, and ignored the rest of the band\u2019s input.\u00a0 The biggest goof came when John invested a lot of band money in a Bahamian tax shelter scheme proposed by Zaentz. The label owner and his cronies bailed before the bank folded, but it ultimately cost the members of CCR in excess of $8 million dollars of which they were able to reclaim only pennies on the dollar. Clifford recalled, \u201cBut whatever we said didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 They (Fantasy) ran right around John. Just because you\u2019re a talented musician doesn\u2019t make you a good businessman. That was the biggest mistake John made. He was an idiot.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clifford and Cook eventually negotiated their own royalty deal on future compilations (like the 1976 package <\/span>Chronicle:\u00a0 The 20 Greatest Hits<\/span><\/i> which went on to sell more than 10 million copies in the United States).\u00a0 Fogerty fought the band because, \u201cJohn was such a control freak he thought he\u2019d be locked out of negotiations,\u201d according to Clifford.\u00a0 \u201cJohn told the rest of the band, \u2018I wrote the music. I made those songs. Your contribution is nothing to mine.\u2019\u201d It didn\u2019t help that John seemed to be the only member of CCR that had issues with Saul Zaentz and Fantasy Records.\u00a0 John blamed Zaentz for all the money troubles but the rest found the band\u2019s problems to be more of John Fogerty\u2019s making, not Saul Zaentz.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When brother Tom bolted from the band in 1971, he commented that, \u201cI\u2019ve never known such a bunch of egotistical maniacs.\u00a0 It is a shame that they all changed so fast, but there it is. It was a really democratic group to begin with, but by the time I left it was a dictatorship.\u201d\u00a0 The animosity never eased and the \u2018bad blood\u2019 took on an even more ominous connotation when Tom Fogerty was infected with AIDS from a tainted transfusion given to him during back surgery in the 1980s.\u00a0 As his health deteriorated, there were several attempts made by Cook and Clifford to mount a reunion, but Tom\u2019s health was only one of the obstacles. John wrote his account in his 2015 book <\/span>Fortunate Son:\u00a0 My Life, My Music<\/span><\/i>:\u00a0 \u201cIn the late eighties, Doug was proposing that Creedence reform even though Tom was very sick.\u00a0 All I could think was, \u2018oh, great, Doug and Stu want to drag Tom around the world in a wheelchair\u2026\u201d.\u00a0 He later told <\/span>The Guardian<\/span><\/i>, \u201cThe best I can say in Tom\u2019s case is he was the older brother, and the younger brother had a lot more talent, therefore he was jealous even to a greater degree than the other two in Creedence Clearwater Revival.\u201d\u00a0 Tom died in September of 1990 at age 48 without the brothers setting aside their ill-feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were cracks in the band\u2019s foundation as far back as Woodstock where their non-hippie vibe got them labeled as \u201ca Boy Scout singles act\u201d among the rock superstars.\u00a0 They took the stage not long after the Grateful Dead blew up the stage amps with their forty-five minute version of <\/span>Turn On Your Love Light.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Having seen this seemingly endless Dead performance, one can only imagine what the band was thinking when they took the stage in the pitch black darkness. A lone voice shouted, \u201cWe\u2019re with you.\u201d when John peered into the darkness and asked, \u201cIs there anybody out there?\u201d\u00a0 Only four tracks of their set were released on a later anniversary compilation. Woodstock was an early example of John making a decision for the rest of the band when he refused to let the footage be used in the movie or original soundtrack album. By the time CCR recorded their last album (<\/span>Mardi Gras<\/span><\/i>) as a trio, the band had lost its way.\u00a0 <\/span>Rolling Stone<\/span><\/i> reviewer Jon Landau called it, \u201cthe worst album I have ever heard from a major rock band.\u201d\u00a0 Fogerty later blamed Cook and Clifford for the final break, \u201cThey were obsessed with the idea of more control and more influence.\u00a0 So finally the bomb exploded and we never worked together again.\u201d More recently, John has hinted that he might be open to a reunion, but as Clifford stated matter of factly, \u201cIt would have been a good idea 20 or 25 years ago, but now it is just too late.\u00a0 The leopard doesn\u2019t change its spots and John is only floating the idea as a way to re-polish his image a bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0CCR branched off in two directions from this point.\u00a0 John recorded some very Creedence sounding records on his own (<\/span>Centerfield (1985) <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Blue Moon Swamp (1997)<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 He finally broke his own self-imposed ban and began playing CCR songs again in 1987 when George Harrison and Bob Dylan joined him on stage.\u00a0 They reminded him that if he didn\u2019t start playing his old songs again, \u201cPeople are going to think <\/span>Proud Mary<\/span><\/i> is a Tina Turner song.\u201d\u00a0 The hard feelings continued when the band was inducted into the <\/span>Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/span><\/i> in 1993:\u00a0 Fogerty refused to play with Cook and Clifford in favor of an all star band with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson.\u00a0 The only positive news the band got came when Concord Records purchased Fantasy from Zaentz. When the new owners learned about the hard feelings, they gave the band a better royalty rate and returned Fogerty\u2019s songwriting credits. Unfortunately,\u00a0 the band was too broken by this time to let bygones be bygones.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cook and Clifford continued to work with each other periodically in a mobile recording venture called Factory Productions.\u00a0 They played together as studio musicians and with the Don Harrison Band while also producing other artists including Roky Erickson and Doug Sahm.\u00a0 Cook spent a good deal of the 1980s playing bass with the band Southern Pacific that was included former Doobie Brothers Band members John McFee and Keith Knudson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After a period of musical inactivity, 1995 found Cook moving into a house in Lake Tahoe very near Clifford who had previously retired to the area.\u00a0 One thing led to another and they began performing again as Creedence Clearwater Revisited, taking the band on the road for 150 dates the first year.\u00a0 As a courtesy, they asked John Fogerty if he would like to be involved but, as they expected, he declined the offer. A pending lawsuit over the use of the CCR name brought by you-know-who forced CCR2 to tour for a while as Cosmo\u2019s Factory (taken from the 1970 CCR album of the same name that had been recorded at Clifford\u2019s home studio).\u00a0 They won their case, went back to using the CCR2 name, reduced their touring to 75 dates per year at Clifford\u2019s request, and have now been at it for more than twenty years. While some criticize them for being a glorified cover band, they have toured five continents and moved platinum level sales of a 2007 album of their live covers called <\/span>Recollection.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Quite a few musicians have passed through the band (including Elliot Easton who came to fame with The Cars) but the core has remained Cook, Clifford, multi-instrumentalist Steve \u201cThe Captain\u2019 Gunner, and guitarist\/vocalist Dan McGuinnis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The formation of the CCR2 band was more of an accident than a planned career move.\u00a0 According to Cook, \u201cWe never had any intention of playing for the public, but a friend wanted to promote a couple of concerts.\u00a0 We got talked into it, but didn\u2019t know if it would go over.\u201d More recently, they have reduced their yearly touring to about 50 dates.\u00a0 In April of 2019, the band announced their intention to do one more tour and then retire the band for good at the end of this farewell tour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As far back as my high school band, The Twig, CCR songs have been some of my favorites to play.\u00a0 The CCR sound is undeniable but they never rehashed the same song template. There were certain things that made the songs sound like CCR, but the number of hits they had without repeating themselves was astounding.\u00a0 One of the first times The Twig performed the CCR version of <\/span>I Heard It Through the Grapevine<\/span><\/i>, I had to explain that it was their cover of a Motown tune to a dancer who inquired if we knew any other cool CCR songs.\u00a0 The idea that a band with so many hits on the radio doing a cover of someone else\u2019s music was a foreign idea to this particular fan.\u00a0 Other than The Beatles, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and The Everly Brothers, no other band has had as many two sided hit records as CCR.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cook and Clifford were instrumental in producing the CCR sound and I can only imagine it felt good to go out and play those songs again live.\u00a0 I never say never, and if the CCR2 thing plays out and the three remaining members of CCR manage to actually play together again, that would be something short of a miracle.\u00a0 Nobody is holding their breath here, but as they say, miracles do happen from time to time! Only time will tell.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Top Piece Video:\u00a0 CCR in happier days (possibly) and long before CCR II: