If you actively dislike Creedence Clearwater Revival, then I can never respect anything you have to say about anything.

By the late ’60s market forces had already begun the unfortunate project of Balkanizing rock ’n’ roll into separate genres: “Rock” music was intended to appeal to largely white audiences, while African American artists were typically relegated to the R&B charts. For John Fogerty and CCR, this development violated everything they represented. The band essentially acted as a rearguard protectorate to the genre’s multiethnic traditions, loaning out “Proud Mary” to Ike & Tina Turner while borrowing Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” and Norman Whitfield’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” all to spectacular effect.

sorry but this is just beyond stupid

"loaning out" ?

i wish i could think of another example of an african-american act covering a popular song by a white artist after 1969

They did "99 and 1/2 (Won't Do)", not "ITMH".

listen, we'll come to the factual errors after we get to the bottom of this "rearguard protectorate" nonsense

i find very little to like about that article, sort of surprised to find it was so well received by others

i defy anyone to name a single integrated band from that era that was committed to crossing the boundaries between rock and soul

lol exactly

trying to paint CCR as simultaneously the sole protectors of the great "multiethnic traditions" of rock music, as uber-insightful socially perceptive class warriors, and as visionaries who portended the fierce, nihilistic brevity of punk rock is just a bizarre and pointless critical exercise.

they are an irreconcilable contradiction of boneheadedness and sharp insight, sluggishness and fierce brevity, comical down-home-southern-man posturing and frank honesty. they were cool and they were uncool. it's actually fine that they weren't the stooges or the velvet underground. and it's also okay to admit that their relationship to black american music was complicated and, at times, problematic.

fierce brevity, i like fierce brevity

sorry, i just fucking love creedence and it's important to me that everybody else loves them for the same reasons

I'm not an expert on Creedence by any means, but your post sounds about right to me.

I hadn't noticed the In the Midnight Hour ref (I think I immediately glossed over it as a reference to the Midnight Special), that's a weird mistake.

budo is correct that CCR were not unique in attempting to bridge the rock and R&B divide - there were so many terrible, mostly white, bands doing this at the time. But idk how central that point is to the article.

budo is correct that CCR were not unique in attempting to bridge the rock and R&B divide - there were so many terrible, mostly white, bands doing this at the time

Rare Earth > CCR

(Not really, obviously. But more people should talk about Rare Earth. They were pretty good!)

Also from that quote above, the idea that white and black audiences started out integrated and had been Balkanized by “market forces” seems like a strange reading of history.

I think of CCR as being about as R'n'B as The Who - not very. Maybe in intent, but not in final effect. The covers are never the strongest tracks, 'cept maybe Suzie Q, which is a rockabilly song anyways.

I like the article's passion, but the conjectures are really reaching. I don't think Fogarty was that theoretical in the moment but I'm sure he was in retrospect. (Like Townshend for that matter)

I hoid it thru the grapevine

nyah nyah nyah what you hoid

sorry should be

nyah nyah nyah of what you hoid

Well, the original lyric goes "people say believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear."

Fogerty either didn't understand the lyric or didn't care to, and so sings "people say you hide from what you see, nah nah nah, from what you hear."

finally read this article and gotta agree that its pretty much filled w/stuff that's wildly wrong & suppositions that are downright weird

The subterranean groove of “Feelin’ Blue” is as insinuating and louche as any rendered contemporaneously by the Velvets or MC5

we all know the MC5 and how famous they are for their slinky, sexy, louche grooves

Lou-che grooves.

we all know the MC5 and how famous they are for their slinky, sexy, louche grooves

they've got more than a few imo: Teenage Lust, Looking at You, Ramblin' Rose, Miss X etc.

MC5 have an insane rhythm section but I would not describe the explosive high-energy rock sound of a song like Ramblin' Rose as being anything close to "subterranean" or "insinuating" in the way the writer seems to be getting at w/r/t Feelin' Blue. Maybe Miss X I would grant is the closest in those terms, but still makes for a weird choice of comparison imo.

Just feels like another writer who needs to learn that there are other ways of praising rock music than comparing it to Velvets, Stooges, MC5, punk, etc.

Or stuff like this seems backward to me:

If you listened to only classic rock radio today, you would think of Creedence as four-hit wonders, with a couple of well-worn tracks still in rotation, but without the acknowledgement that they are among the greatest bands this country has ever produced

Nelson, by the way, is The Paranoid Style, in case you wondered.

xp Yeah, they are (along with the Doors) one of the few “canonical” American classic rock bands, no? The Beach Boys are classic, but not really “classic rock” radio mainstays...

Velvets, Stooges, MC5

Well, in this case I think it's not a totally useless thing to bring up when they were all contemporaries. It's a refreshing approach to recontextualize CCR with this other group of bands rather than the Beatles, Stones, and Who, with whom they had imo not much in common but who they (per even the not far above) constantly get collected with in the classic rock pantheon.

Anyway, did I bring up my friend who, I just learned, does not like CCR, and was amazed the other two of us were huge fans? He's no snob or hipster, they just somehow totally passed him by. So I guess it's possible! I should follow up with him to see if he's taken the dive.

Also from that quote above, the idea that white and black audiences started out integrated and had been Balkanized by “market forces” seems like a strange reading of history.

It's complicated, but there is a kernel of truth to that. The Top 40 and the R&B Top 40 had become so similar and overlapping by 1963 that Billboard stopped publishing an R&B chart in 1964. It was, imo, business decisions that caused the subsequent balkanization, whether you call that "market forces" or something else.

(Not really, obviously. But more people should talk about Rare Earth. They were pretty good!)

― shared unit of analysis (unperson)

their critical error was failing to bring us the revolution

http://pm1.narvii.com/6955/e48db3b650475a2d92771c7c95e85268cde6a810r1-323-337v2_uhq.jpg

https://townsquare.media/site/86/files/2018/02/bob-seger-pep.jpg?w=980&q=75

There are maybe four unbearable things in the second photo, but I admire the sheer balls involved.

The Top 40 and the R&B Top 40 had become so similar and overlapping by 1963 that Billboard stopped publishing an R&B chart in 1964.

That's an interesting point, although the suspension of the R&B chart only lasted for 14 months. Looking at the Billboard Hot 100 and top 100 R&B tracks from 1963, there was clearly some overlap, but you wouldn't mistake one list for the other. So it may have been a business decision that anticipated more convergence than actually occurred. I guess the reason was never officially disclosed.

I see what you're saying, but I'm noticing how artists like Elvis, Roy Orbison, and even the Beach Boys were having multiple R&B Top 40 hits in '63 and then in '65 when the R&B chart resumes they're nowhere to be found. The conclusion I would draw is that business interests decided (circa 1965) it would be more efficient to sell R&B records to one demographic and rock records to another. Maybe it had to do with radio, maybe with promotion -I don't know and there's probably a good story to be told if someone researched this in depth.

I think something that frequently gets overlooked re: CCR's relationship to R & B is that they were basically a bar band for 10 years before breaking, and in that time they had to have learned and played tons of Motown/Stax/Checker etc. stuff to make rent, which I feel is reflected not just in some of their covers but also much of their prime original material.

Everybody played Motown/Stax/Checker etc covers though - Yes, Gentle Giant, you name it. Though I suppose in the US there were bands that came out of the folk scene.

Re: the encore thing - Fogerty seems so angry and suspicious of the music industry after years & years of getting kicked around by promoters & labels while coming up, it’s easy for me to imagine his thinking was more along the lines of “if they want us to play extra they’ve got to pay us extra” rather than some grand existential statement about living in the moment

I agree that the kabuki involved in the audience demanding an encore (that it knows it's going to get) while the artist pretends to be done (despite fully intending to come back on stage) is stupid tho

or rather *pretending* to demand an encore that the artist is *pretending that they might withhold*.

(Because, yeah, Human League is going to play "Don't You Want Me." Colin Hay is going to play "Down Under." The Knack is going to play "My Sharona.")

"I didn't think Andy Williams was going to do "Moon River" and then BAM! Second encore!"

lol how dare musicians take a short break

I like it better when the band comes back and then just fucks around with stupid covers or not-ready-for-prime-time material. Just like the bonus tracks/demos/b-sides you get at the end of a special edition.

"We're taking a short break" is not the same as "thank you Poughkeepsie, you've been great, that's it for us, we're done now"

and then some time later

"oh, wow, you guys made so much noise that we totally changed our minds about the concert being over, looks like we know a couple more songs that we are now going to play, though we had not planned to do these particular songs on this particular evening."

Audiences should stay completely silent and see what happens

a couple times in my life I've been lucky enough to see bands just offstage visibly disagreeing with each other about whether to go back out for an encore, which is extremely funny to me.

Man, the number of times I've seen a big show and the act broadcasts some bullshit like "oh, we're just getting started!" or "I don't know if you have somewhere else to be, because we're going to be here all night!" or some shit, *inevitably* a song or two before the break and encore (which itself is *inevitably* some combination of a quieter song from the new album, a louder song, and then the big hit). I just assume most people don't understand the concept of a curfew, and certainly don't realize that if the band goes over its more or less pre-determined end time they're going to start paying piles of extra cash to the union.

The exceptions to the rule are like Pearl Jam, which have a relationship with this city and/or venues like Wrigley Field, so get a tiny bit more wiggle room. But, for example, when Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen came out to do an encore together in Hyde Park in London a few years back, the city eventually pulled the plug.

Bryan Ferry, when I saw him a couple years ago, knows how to do it imo. After a lengthy set of Roxy and solo hits and deep cuts:

ENCORE 1:
Let’s Stick Together (Wilbert Harrison cover)
What Goes On (Velvet Underground cover)
Jealous Guy (John Lennon cover)

ENCORE 2:
Editions of You

lol @ complaining about the interactive theater of live performances

xps

The only legitimate encores I remember — that is, where the band actually seemed to be done and weren’t just going through the encore motions — were Neil Young & Crazy Horse in 1991, where he did his second encore after the house lights came up; and Otis Rush in 1987, who was opening for Los Lobos, and remains the only opener I’ve ever seen who got an encore.