Creedence Clearwater Revival: C or D?

Hendrix, "dated"? I don't think it's ever going to date, that stuff is as audacious as the day he made it. I've come to the conclusion that, as much as I like rock and roll, and as instinctively hostile I can be toward "rockism" or whatever you call it, Hendrix is in a whole different class than anybody else who ever made "rock." I'm sure this opinion is not shared by everyone.

CCR, though...it is stiff, stiff. Bad rhythm section. Mechanical. Great songs performed with a kind of caution, a really bad reverence for some "past" which consistently hobbles the whole project. Ben Williams up the thread hit it, "Let it Bleed" contains some "eerie" moments where the bullshit of Jagger's lyrics sorta gets hijacked by something altogether more mystical...as in the slide-guitar/piano/vibes bit in "Monkey Man." Which is all Keith. Whereas CCR never once hit a note like that.

That said, I still kind of like them, as superior radio music, and I think "Willy and the Poor Boys" is a fine record, I always liked "Effigy." I mean explain to me how "Effigy" is all that different from "Mod Lang" or something...once you get past the limberness of the Big Star rhythm section and the stiffness of CCR's. But the basic conception is similar...

So, a classic, but even more dated than the Band, who had some of the same problems of over-thinking everything and self-conscious mythologizing...the Band were far superior musicians, and they sounded like they had been having a better time out on the road than CCR had...

Dan Penn does "Lodi" on his early '70s "Nobody's Fool" album, quite well.

If we had football chants in America they'd probably be the ultimate successful example of folk attitude in this country. The Pinefox mentioned on a war thread that he feels the art of chanting is DOA. Maybe he could expand on that here? I think if he's right it has serious implications for democracy!

I don't see how "sexy" by this definition is different from "makes me think about sex" - and as such it seems to be necessarily observer-dependent, ie., different strokes for different folks. For example, if I was to say that I don't find Elvis "sexy", how would you argue that I was wrong?

And CCR did have an influence on mid-late 80s Seattle. Mark Arm and some pre-Pearl Jam dudes had that band Green River. And didn't the early incarnation of Nirvana do CCR covers? Or at least Kurt claimed to have played in a CCR cover band. Something like that.

Andrew M., that is some interesting, uhmm, but have you ever been to "Appalachia" (pronounced correctly it rhymes with "appa-latch-a," not "appa-laytchi-a")? CCR has zero to do with any of that. They from California, man, and that's a long, long way from E. Ky./Tenn./W. Va., not to mention fucking Germany...personally, I used to dig Can when I was driving across, say, *Arkansas*, but otherwise, it's a bit honky for my taste...stiil, Applachian-Kraut boogie is a funny idea, someone out there in I Love Music-Land fire up the 4-track, we gonna have a part-ee!!

Lest I sound like an overly gushing fanboy, I'll admit that his solo albums have
been VERY inconsistent. The best songs are great, but nearly all of it sounds
like unecessary backtracking. Of course, it's hard to keep writing great songs
when you only release an average of 10 new songs per decade. These
things take practice.

I was surprised at how much I still loved some tracks (good god "Fortunate Son" might be the most ferocious song of the Vietnam era), but so many kind of filtered out into blandness. I really wanted to like it/them more than I do.

more info plz

That said, I find them incredibly boring and samey. There's something so mechanical about them, and JF's voice grates. Prototype of all the back-to-roots groups (the Band too, of course), and they lack the glamour I need from rock and roll. I know, I know--they weren't after glamour.

When something like "Fortunate Son" comes on the radio, I dig; but they're a group (I feel the same way about REM) whose records I don't own any more and have no desire to play. Nice on the radio. Fogerty's solo records are horrendous, I have always hated "Center Field" with a passion, what a stupid song. But sure, classic. And no way are they a patch on the Stones, give me a break.

SP: They were crankin' back in the day, I can attest.

Rock music: C or D?
Music: C or D?
Sex: C or D?
Oxygen: C or D?

I was just listening to the debut w/ a bonus track "Call It Pretending", & learned that their first single was "Porterville" / "Call It Pretending". It occurs to me that those are amongst the band's most ~~60s-ish~~ songs, the former with SF-style backup vocals, the latter a Motown rip. I know it sounds silly to say that a 60s band sounded 60s-ish, esp. one featured in every movie about the 60s ever, but CCR always seemed more futuristic to me in their concision & stripped-down sound. But this single, both sides, isn't like that. "Call It Pretending", the more I think about it, would have been a good Stones cut in 1966, which is what I mean when I say it sounds 60s---Jagger & co wouldn't have tried to pull that off in 1972.

but CCR always seemed more futuristic to me in their concision & stripped-down sound

I know what you mean, insofar as there was no one else who really sounded like them in '68 and '69. (There's never been anyone who really sounds like them, actually, even if stuff like "Long Cool Woman" tried to.) I'm not sure if they were pointing the way to the future, or if they had just reached back so far that it seemed like they were. In general, moving towards a stripped-down sound was common in '68: The White Album, Beggars Banquet, John Wesley Harding, etc. I don't really have a point here. I don't have their first album, either, but I'm going to see if I can find the two songs you mention on Grooveshark. Seems to me I know "Porterville" from somewhere.

Yeah--"Call It Pretending" is really good, and totally atypical. It's got a little bit of "Out of Time" in it.

Yeah, "Out of Time"s a good comparison; for "Porterville" it's like a Dead song circa 66, out of time indeed.

The debut's really pretty light (in a good way!) compared to where they'd go next, into swampy doom. And it's interesting how Chronicle recontextualizes the songs from the debut ("Suzy Q" & "I Put A Spell On You"): they fit well there, more swampy doom. But the debut is overall more of a mishmash, more bluesy than the later records; which makes sense given its provenance from pre-CCR bands (Golliwogs mostly).

heard creedence everywhere i went yesterday. there literally is no music more omnipresent than CCR. ~science~

For John Fogerty’s next album, due this fall, the former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman will revisit his old band’s deep catalog of hits in new collaborations with rock, pop and country duet partners including the Foo Fighters, Miranda Lambert, My Morning Jacket, Bob Seger, Keith Urban and Brad Paisley.

“Wrote a Song For Everyone” also is slated to include new Fogerty songs, set alongside Creedence touchstones such as “Fortunate Son” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” from the band's most successful period in the late '60s and early '70s.

The new project shows Fogerty fully embracing his artistic legacy; for many years after Creedence disbanded in 1972, he refused to perform the group’s songs because of legal issues with his former record company. He famously refused to play with former band mates Doug Clifford and Stu Cook when Creedence was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. The fourth original band member, guitarist Tom Fogerty, John's older brother, died in 1990.

Fogerty eventually began performing Creedence material again during his live shows, and last September in New York played Creedence’s albums “Green River” and “Cosmo’s Factory” in their entirety over the course of a two-night stand.

The new album, which also will include duets with Alan Jackson, Dawes and other artists still to be confirmed, draws its title from Fogerty’s song that originally appeared on “Green River” in 1969.

Most recently Fogerty made his acting debut portraying himself in an episode of the Fox TV series "The Finder," for which he wrote and sang the theme song "Swamp Water," at the invitation of the show's creator, Hart Hanson, a longtime Fogerty/Creedence fan.

The new project shows Fogerty fully embracing taking a fat dump on his artistic legacy

CHOOGLE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JjxpGpKNR4

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/attachments/creedence-eating-at-taco-bell-burbank-january-1968-jpg.261965/

CCR at Taco Bell

A few hours later Fogerty had a Rude Awakening #2, if you catch my drift...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYcVUs8CIAAggUO.jpg

haha!

Learned yesterday that you cannot use "choogle" playing Scrabble. (Not against a computer, anyway--you could try to bluff a real player with it, and hope s/he's a CCR fan.)

I protest!

is teh owner of that game Saul Z?

choogle is totally a word fuck that computer

CCR is blowing my mind right now, I know I'm wrong but tonight their 4 records from the 60s sound better to me than anything the beatles, stones or doors did in that decade.

Having a revisit to Willy & The Poor Boys this week! I think "It Came Out Of The Sky" could be one of the best rock songs of the sixties.