Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) is a classic southern style rock band of the late 1960’s and early 70’s. The band was made up of lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his older brother and rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bass player Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford. Growing up in the San Francisco area, the group met by attending Portola Junior High School together and by backing Tom Fogerty at live gigs under the name the Blue Velvets. After Tom officially joined the band, they began to put out small records in 1964 with Fantasy Records of San Francisco.

The group experienced a setback in 1967 as John Fogerty and Doug Clifford received draft notices for the Vietnam War. Fogerty chose to enlist in the Army Reserves while Clifford enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserves. by 1968 the two members had been discharged from military service and the band members were ready to take off. They created the new band name, Creedence Clearwater Revival by combining the name of a friend, a quote from a beer commercial, and the bands new spirit for making music. Their first song to reach the Top 40 chart was “Susie Q” from their self-titled debut album, peaking at number 11. Following the success of this first album, the band began to tour the United States while working on a second album, Bayou Country, in 1969. This album came to be a number 7 hit on the charts and was officially platinum. The song “Born on the Bayou” reached number 2 on the national Billboard chart. John Fogerty claims this song to be the result of his high spirits and excitement from being discharged from the Army Reserves.

In the following March of 1969, “Bad Moon Rising” was released and hit the number 1 spot on the UK singles charts. This was the band’s only single to reach the top spot. Continuing to tour the country, the band was one of the main acts for the Woodstock Festival of 1969. A funny story regarding their set, John Fogerty claims that the band the was on before them, the Grateful Dead, put the audience to sleep. He was quoted in saying, “… just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered in mud.” Now whether the Grateful Dead was that bad or not is unknown, but Fogerty clearly wasn’t impressed with their performance.

Following all of this success and more, the band began to experience turmoil. Issues over creativity and business decisions forced Tom Fogerty to leave the group in disgust. He said the he refused to be under the control that John had established over the other members. He had begun making many executive decisions, such as the band no longer giving encores at their live shows. John then took this further by telling Cook and Clifford that that the members would only write their own material from now on. Also, Fogerty refused to be the vocalist for any of their songs that they would write. This was the last straw for the band, and they chose to go their own ways, Fogerty continuing make music as a one-man-band. Legal matter surfaced as the record label was still owed 8 albums from CCR, but John Fogerty refused to play with the other members. This was an overall terrible way for one the greatest rock bands of all time to end.

Although I wish the band would have continued their success, I am a huge fan of some of their biggest hits, “Bad Moon Rising” in particular. I feel as though I could listen to this song all day long and not get bored of it. I also enjoy the covers that have been done of the song. These play with the words of CCR in a fun way. I’d hold out for a reunion, but it doesn’t appear to be coming any time soon.