Certainly John was CCR. The other guys were great but they were his backup band.I didnt hear CCR until '76 ..several years after they broke up.John Fogerty wrote the sound track to my youth , made me listen closely and continues to amaze me.
yes John is controling, for good reason. He knew what was good and what was crap or just not good enough. If he wasnt the way he is we would not have the CCR we all love. I feel so bad no one else in CCR would stand behind him through the years of legal bull with Fantasy. Lets face it CCR was screwd from the word go. Fantasy got so rich off them, CCR started Fantasy, thats the truth. When given the chance I would shake Johns hand with pride saying thank you for not giving up.
Let's not kid ourselves. John Fogarty WAS Credence Clearwater Revival. He was the voice. He was the lead guitarist. He was the main songwriter. In my opinion he could have had any other bass player and drummer behind him and it would have still sounded like Fogarty. I think I even read somewhere once that he played all of the instruments on the records and the the other guys were just the live band.
When your young, uninformed and hungry it's so great that a record company is willing to let this band sign on. People that lived through the 50s' know what it was like. If you ever feel hunger you would know why the band sign a bondage degrading contract letting the record company over see their funds.
If you read the book "Bad Moon Rising" John got the earring when the bank lost his money. John is the best, end of, hes the most talented person alive, bugger the Beatles, if they were releasing songs today they would be crap. John Fogerty has written by far the best songs ever hes a legend!!!
T John's an American hero. Having played music most of my life, and always being into progressive rock, Rush, Kansas, Boston, I never payed much attention to Creedence. Had a friend tell me Creedence was the best band ever, and I was like yeah right, LOL!! After all these years I love Creedence and John Fogerty more than all those bands. My friend was right. Don't think it gets any better than this man. God bless you John Fogerty
prosteelHeader: The breakup of CCR is quite complex. First and Foremost, their contract with Fantasy Records was terrible. John was writing, producing and performing but basically getting paid scale, like the others in the group. So that caused a lot of animosity because that is the contract John signed not realizing how bad a contract it really was. So that started some resentment among the group. Secondly, you have to understand a person can only write so many hit songs. When John would ask the others in the group for input, they would either half-ass it, or come up with something that was decidedly not within the CCR sound. If John tried to change it to make it more in their style, he was accused of changing it to receive songwriting credit. If he didn't change the song, it would flop. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. A person can only survive in that kind of situation so long before throwing up his arms and declaring defeat - which is basically what John did in 1971.
Harold Lloyd Artists can complain about the contracts they sign to the cows come home. However, if they willingly signed the contract then they need to abide by its requirements.
@denniswilsonfan i couldn't have put it better nor is it more obvious to the ones w/ common sense thank you, if ever 1 band member represented a band and their sound i could not think of a better example than Mr John Fogerty..
@AceOfHeart2012 Obviously their success was built on the songs written by John and Paul, but George was clearly an emerging talent in the band towards their later years. I and many other Beatles' fans love George's songs. Not too many songs in the canon of classic rock can hold up to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Then you've got songs like "Something," (Sinatra's favorite) "Taxman," and "Here Comes the Sun." As far as Ringo, I believe he's done quite well for himself since his Beatles days.
TheygotSkylar. They weren't playing together as CCR in 1980 or 83'. I must be missing something. And as far as choosing sides, John wanted them to stick with him and NOT the record/management co/contract. Stu & Cliff went with the record company/contract. Bottom line, John said that if they backed him in regards to fighting the lawsuit that they ALL would get way more money, including Stu, Cliff & Tom's estate.
ok..Johnny wrote the tunes, but they all grew up in the fab '50's which was at least half the influence here!......there's no substitute for that. As much as I love kenny Aranoff and the others, I wanna see guys of that vintage playin!!! I can go 20 miles away on a weekend and hear 30 year olds coverin' classic rock! But I'd rather have the real deal!!
@TheygotSkylar Actually, Ringo did get an equal share of the money. They split performance royalties four equal ways. The other three got as much as Paul for Yesterday. Paul and John owned equal portions of Northern, but George and Ringo also owned shares of it as well. Apple is divided equally four ways. Until Apple was dissolved, album proceeds were split four ways (performance again, the publishing got stickier!) So, no sympathy for Fogerty, he could have given the others some input.
It was basically parasites in the contract biz. The ones that never contributed a note to the hits, make a killing off the talented ones. I love that piggy song.
@mikeinportsri The reason the rest of the band (including his brother) wouldn't stand behind him during the legal bull was because he controlled all of the band's business decisions even though Stu Cook had a business degree, thus he made the bed that they were all sleeping in regarding royalties and publishing rights. I think they all realize that a contract is a contract and since he made the bad business decisions he should deal with their consequences.
George did have some great songs, just not the Beatles sound. One of the very best they did record was 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps". So he had a nice collection to pull from for his solo work, that was a George sound. All the better for him in the end.
@denniswilsonfan -the ccr sound and band was 4 guys-thats why they were the number 1 band after the beatles in late 60s-would you call the band his got now ccr ?-no-if paul mc and ringo were playing-would you call them the beatles-no -when he started in the early 60s-he should gone solo ,then the music wouldve taken a different path-the point is let them play together for ccr sake-we the fans deserve this--you only get one life -time is short for all of us,even for the selfish and the wounded.
It seems that you are blaming John for everything that went bad. I don't know if John was lying, but in an interview, John said he went to see his brother Tom at the hospital. John was still hurting from what Tom supossely told him. And if I recollect right Tom said to John that Saul was his best friend" Now i would be really pissed too if my own brother had told me that too. Maybe there is a lot more that we don't know about. But we can all agreed that it was a shame the band had to break up.
@jer1er On the other hand, (and I realize I'm stating the obvious here) I don't think The Beatles would have made it on the songs of George and Ringo. Just sayin'...
Theygotskylar. Look, I am going to bow out of this discussion. I will have agree to disagree. I don't think we are that far off in the big scheme of things. I want to make it known that I know all too well that it takes band MEMBERS to create a song. Yes, we know we can all overdub all instruments like John did on, Centerfield, but no one really likes that, especially me. So I don't want to sit here and knock Stu, Cliff & Tom. Of course they were part of the band and deserve credit. Good talk.
Yeah, okay, John, you didn't know that you were the most famous one in the band. lol The problem with John and CCR is similar to problems with other bands where one person does all the writing, singing, and plays lead. Think of Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan. It becomes a very big control problem. Guys like them are control freaks. Geniuses, but control freaks. Perfectionists. Eventually, it leads to discord within the band. Even with the Beatles, Harrison and Ringo had enough by Let It Be.
ccr was a great band....john fogerty alone or with anybody else will never sound like ccr.....center field maybe is a good song...but nothing like the songs that were done by ccr.....and probably he will never be able to write a song like the early ones...the hunger and the anger are gone so the capability to write "magical" songs is gone also.....
AS MUCH AS he is loved and his music-he broke the band up,decided to split-he had the giant ego-all he is saying--he did it with his own hands-wouldnt sing with doug and stu at the induction awards-he talks about healing-he's giant ego cant cure the ills of the past -he just doesnt want to acknowledge that ccr was a 4 piece band-and together they were brilliant-get over it john-you hurt the memories of ccr and public by selling short in your attitude-though we love your music-stlll a bit nasty
