John Fogerty Finally Feels Like a Fortunate Son

John Fogerty managed to acquire the majority of his historic song catalog from Concord for an undisclosed amount, giving him the U.S. and worldwide publishing rights to most of the songs he wrote for Creedence Clearwater Revival. This marks the end of Fogerty’s 50-year quest to finally own this music, a remarkable story that was first reported by Billboard. It broke just in the wake of Jeff Beck’s death and I almost would have missed it.

According to Billboard, the reclaimed CCR copyrights cover more than 65 songs, mostly written by Fogerty, including gems such as Proud Mary, Down on the Corner, Fortunate Son, Bad Moon Rising, Up Around the Bend and Green River. Concord, which owned the rights since 2004 when it acquired CCR’s original record label Fantasy Records, retains the CCR master recordings in its catalog. They will also continue to administer Fogerty’s share of the publishing catalog for an unspecified amount of time.

John Fogerty signing publishing rights deal with Concord (Photo: Julie Fogerty)

This whole saga started in 1967 when Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz offered CCR, who were then still called The Golliwogs, the opportunity to record a full-length album. When they signed a deal with the label, John Fogerty didn’t realize Fantasy would also own the publishing rights to his songs. Fogerty who extricated himself from Fantasy in 1974 made repeated attempts to gain control over his early CCR catalog to no avail. After his relationship with Zaentz had soured, he even refused to perform CCR songs during his concerts until the late ’80s, since he didn’t want Zaentz to profit from any royalties.

Things took a turn to the outright bizarre in 1985 when Zeantz sued Fogerty for copyright infringement, claiming his song The Old Man Down the Road essentially was the music of Run Through the Jungle, a CCR tune to which Zaentz owned the rights. Fogerty prevailed and was also successful in his efforts for reimbursement of legal fees, though it required taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1989, it appeared Fogerty through mediation had reached a deal with Zaentz to finally buy his publishing rights, but it fell apart when according to Fogerty Zaentz doubled the price at the last minute, something he couldn’t afford.

While Fogerty signed with Concord after they had acquired Fantasy from Zaentz in 2004 and they reinstated artist royalties to him, Fantasy wasn’t ready to sell any of the publishing rights as recently as 18 months ago. That’s when according to Billboard, he and his wife and manager Julie Fogerty realized that under U.S. copyright law, rights to his compositions would begin reverting back to him in a few years as the songs turned 56 years old, but that wouldn’t have included rights outside the U.S. I think it’s safe to assume this legal context played a role in reaching a deal.

John Fogerty with his wife and manager Julie Fogerty (Photo: Kyle Spicer)

“As of this January, I own my own songs again,” John Fogerty said in a statement on his website. “This is something I thought would never be a possibility. After 50 years, I am finally reunited with my songs. I also have a say in where and how my songs are used. Up until this year, that is something I have never been able to do. I am looking forward to touring and celebrating this year!”

Added Julie Fogerty: “I was always hoping for a miracle that John would own his songs, and I’m so blissful knowing that this has finally come true for him. The songs he wrote for CCR were going to start reverting in approximately three years, continuing for each year forward. I thought to myself that if there was anything I could do to make that happen now, it would be that miracle that we have been waiting for more than 50 years. I began to produce a plan to purchase his publishing right now. In doing so, I enlisted the help of Irving Azoff, Jason Karlov, Susan Genco and we were able to secure the US Rights in addition to Worldwide Rights, which would not have been part of the copyright reversions. I am so joyful, grateful, and excited for John.”

Billboard rightly notes that Fogerty’s purchase decision stands in contrast to other artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, who recently sold their publishing rights for millions of dollars. Of course, nothing would prevent John Fogerty from doing the same. But after a 50-year quest, for now, he’s planning to hang to his publishing rights and for the first time in his life enjoy control over this music.

I’m happy for John and like to wrap up this post with clips of some of the songs he now fully owns. I’m also throwing in a Spotify playlist with these and some other tunes from his 55-year-plus recording career.

Proud Mary – Bayou Country (January 1969)

Green River – Green River (August 1969)

Bad Moon Rising – Green River (August 1969)

Down On the Corner – Willy and the Poor Boys (November 1969)

Fortunate Son – Willy and the Poor Boys (November 1969)

Have You Ever Seen the Rain – Pendulum (December 1970)

Here’s the aforementioned Spotify playlist:

Sources: Wikipedia; Billboard; John Fogerty website; YouTube; Spotify

John Fogerty’s Riveting New Protest Song Proves He Got Fire Left in Belly

I just dig John Fogerty who at 75 years old still loves what he does and still does it pretty darn well. I was fortunate to see him in action with my own eyes in May 2018. The man had a ball on stage, and you simply can’t fake that kind of enthusiasm – it’s electrifying! On January 6, Fogerty released Weeping in the Promised Land, his first new song in eight years.

Notably, the tune isn’t a typical John Fogerty swamp rocker, though I love these types of songs by him and wouldn’t have minded. Instead, it’s stripped back with Fogerty singing and on piano only, accompanied by a few gospel backing vocalists – so cool! Thematically, it’s a protest song that’s reminiscent of Fortunate Son and Who’ll Stop the Rain from the Creedence Clearwater Revival era. The gospel vocals in particular give me chills – check it out!

John’s words leave no doubt who and what he’s singing about: …Forked-tongued pharaoh, behold be comes to speak/Weeping in the Promised Land/Hissing and spewing, it’s power that he seeks/Weeping in the Promised Land/With dread in their eyes, all the nurses are crying/So much sorrow, so much dying/Pharaoh keep a-preaching but he never had a plan/Weeping in the Promised Land…

As Rolling Stone reported, Fogerty first came up with the line and title “weeping in the promised land” about 25 years ago. While he dug it out a few years back and wrote a full-fledged tune, he wasn’t happy with the outcome. Fast forward to last summer when the phrase all of a sudden became meaningful to Fogerty and resulted in an entirely new song.

Apparently, the initial version, which Fogerty recorded with his son Shane Fogerty (guitar), Don Was (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums), was more of a swamp rocker. Interestingly, it was his wife and manager Julie who suggested John should try to play the tune on the piano instead. Initially, Fogerty who first and foremost is a guitarist (and a pretty decent one) was a bit reluctant, but fortunately, he overcame his doubts.

Writing Weeping in the Promised Land turned out to be quite challenging, Fogerty told Rolling Stone. Over several months, he grappled with the lyrics. He went on car rides to local parks in southern California to get some inspiration. “I felt like I was wandering around in the desert,” he joked.

In the end, it all came beautifully together. And more is on the way, namely an album with all-new material – the first since Revival from October 2007! “We’ve had a couple of recording sessions since this song was done,” Fogerty noted. “Getting this song out of me was almost like a blockage. I had to get this finished first.” He didn’t reveal further details on timing, so stay tuned.

Sources: Rolling Stone; YouTube

The Venues: Red Rocks Amphitheatre

In January 2018, I did a post about Bad Company’s album Live at Red Rocks. It keeps getting views, with the most recent occurring just a few days ago. This gave me the idea to write about what must be one of the most magnificent outdoor performance venues. Plus, my last post in the venues category dates back to August 2019 – another good reason to look at one of the places where the ultimate thrill in music takes place: The live experience!

Red Rocks Amphitheatre has a long history, something I had not been aware of and frankly had not thought about. How long? It somewhat depends where you start. Construction of the facility near Morison, Col., 10 miles west of Denver, began in 1936, though the first concerts there were produced by John Brisben Walker as early as 1906. Brisben, a magazine publisher and automobile entrepreneur, had the vision to leverage the site’s natural acoustics for entertainment purposes.

The next important milestone in the venue’s history occurred in 1927, when manager of Denver parks John Cranmer convinced the city to acquire the area of Red Rocks from Brisben. The price? $54,133, which is the equivalent of approximately $797,920 today – quite a bargain, if you ask me! Denver architect Burnham Hoyt was brought in to design the facility. After a five-year construction, Red Rocks Amphitheatre opened to the public in 1941.

What’s truly amazing to me is the age of the rock formations. It took the natural amphitheater more than 200 million years to form. There are traces dating back to the Jurassic period 160 million years ago, including dinosaur tracks and fossil fragments. In one of the less glorious aspects in Red Rocks’ history, the area around it was inhabited for hundreds of years by the native American Ute tribe, until they were displaced in the 19th century, according to this collection of facts about the venue, published by the Denver Post in June 2016.

Now let’s get to the fun part: Music performances at Red Rocks. And as you might imagine, there have been many. The challenge, however, is to find live footage from there, capturing artists I truly dig, especially old gigs from the ’60s and ’70s, such as Jimi Hendrix in September 1968 or Jethro Tull in June 1971. The latter unfortunately led to a confrontation between non-paying fans who had arrived to the sold-out show without tickets and the police. It resulted in a five-year ban of rock concerts at the venue.

The first show I’d like to highlight dates back to August 26, 1964, when The Beatles played Red Rocks as part of their U.S. tour that year. While according to The Beatles Bible, only 7,000 of the 9,000 tickets were sold, making it the sole show of the tour that wasn’t sold out, the Fab Four still set a box office record for the facility, marking the earliest notable rock & roll performance there. Here’s some historical footage I found, which includes concert snippets. It’s impossible to verify whether were actually captured at Red Rocks. In any case, it’s a nice illustration of the insanity of Beatlemania.

For the next gig, I’m jumping ahead 19 years. On June 5, 1983, U2 recorded their concert film U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky, which also yielded their live album Under a Blood Red Sky released in November of the same year. The following clip captures the first 15 minutes of the film directed by Gavin Taylor. U2 almost looked like high school pals, but they sure as heck didn’t sound like a high school band. The energy they brought is just infectious. Appropriately, the boys from Dublin kicked it off with Out of Control, a tune from their October 1980 album Boy. It was a rain-soaked evening! This was followed by two other tracks from Boys: Twilight and An Cat Dubh.

While I couldn’t find a clip of the above noted Jethro Tull gig from 1971, here some footage from a show they played at Red Rocks on August 12, 2008: Aqualung, the title track of the band’s fourth studio album from March 1971. It was the only song on that album that wasn’t solely written by Ian Anderson. His first wife, English photographer, actress, playwright and life coach Jennie Anderson (born Franks), is listed as a co-writer.

The last clip I’d like to include captures one of my all-time favorite rock artists John Fogerty who played Red Rocks last year as part of his My 50 Year Trip tour, which is still ongoing though currently on hold because of you know what! Here’s Fortunate Son, a tune a wrote for Willy and the Poor Boys, the fourth studio album by Creedence Clearwater Revival released in November 1969. I can tell you one thing: I consider myself as fortunate to have seen the man in May 2018. He continues to kick ass!

Obviously, Red Rocks Amphitheatre is currently closed, and their website lists the many shows from April through October that have been cancelled or postponed/ rescheduled due to COVID-19. While this sucks for live music lovers like myself and creates a lot of pain for artists, the venue and all the connected vendors, it’s the right thing to do. Catching the bloody virus spreads many hospitalizations and lots of death, as this country has painfully witnessed over the past few months.

I’d like to wrap up this post on a more cheerful note with some additional Red Rocks facts noted in the above Denver Post article, which was updated in November 2018.

Red Rocks has seen nearly 2,700 shows through the end of 2016.

While the above Beatles gig may have marked “the earliest notable rock performance,” it was Ricky Nelson who played the venue’s first ever rock show in 1959.

The band that has performed at Red Rocks the most is Widespread Panic.

Huey Lewis and the News are the band with the record for most consecutive shows in a row, with four gigs performed from August 9-12, 1985.

Electrical transformers were moved outside the venue, after Neil Young noticed they were causing feedback on his tube amps.

While Red Rocks has been successful in attracting big names, one of the biggest has yet to book the venue despite constant rumors they are going to do so: The Rolling Stones.

Sources: Wikipedia; Denver Post; The Beatles Bible; Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre website; YouTube

My Playlist: Creedence Clearwater Revival

The first Creedence Clearwater Revival song I heard was Have You Ever Seen The Rain. This must have been in Germany around 1974. My six-year older sister, who at the time was in her early teens, had the single. The B-side was Hey Tonight. I liked these two tunes from the very beginning. I also recall listening to Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising on the radio. I dig this band to this day, and they’ve been on my mind for the past few weeks, since I learned about the Blues & Bayous Tour ZZ Top and John Fogerty will do together later this year.

The story of Creedence Clearwater Revival or CCR started about 10 years before they would become one America’s most successful rock bands. Their first incarnation was a trio called The Blue Velvets, formed in 1958 by Fogerty (guitar), Doug Clifford (drums) and Stu Cook (piano), who all were students at Portola Junior High School in the San Francisco suburb of El Cerrito. In the beginning, they mostly played instrumental music. Their first studio recording experience occurred in 1959, when they backed up African American singer James Powell on a single. Later that year, John’s older brother Tom Fogerty, who himself had been an aspiring music artist, joined the band as their lead vocalist, and they became Tommy Fogerty and The Blue Velvets. At the time, John was not singing yet.

The band started to record some demos written by the two Fogerty brothers. A small Bay Area record company, Orchestra, decided to release a few of their songs, but they didn’t fare well. In 1964, the band signed with Fantasy Records, an independent San Francisco jazz label. Prompted by the record company, they changed their name to The Golliwogs. Fantasy released a few of their songs, but except for Brown Eyed Girl (unrelated to the Van Morrison tune), the music didn’t make any commercial impact. Eventually, most of the band’s members took on new roles: John became the lead vocalist, his brother changed to rhythm guitar, and Cook switched from piano to the bass.

In 1966, Fogerty and Clifford were drafted into the military and joined the Army Reserve and Coast Guard Reserve, respectively. During their six months of active duty, the band was put on the back burner. In 1967, the financially struggling Fantasy was purchased by Saul Zaentz, a salesman for the company, who had organized a group of other investors. Zaentz liked The Golliwogs but told them they needed to change their name. And so they did, to Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The band name had three different origins. Creedence was derived from Credence Newball, a friend of Tom’s. Clearwater was inspired by a beer TV commercial that used the words “clear water.” And Revival reflected the four members’ renewed commitment to the band. They didn’t waste any time to act on it and went to the studio to record their eponymous debut album. Even before it appeared at the end of May 1968, CCR’s cover of the Dale Hawkins tune Susie Q, which they had cut a few months earlier, already received radio play and a good deal of attention. It appeared separately as a single and became their first hit, peaking at no. 11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 – the only CCR top 40 track not written by John Fogerty.

Following their breakthrough, CCR started touring heavily and shortly thereafter began working on their sophomore album Bayou Country, which was released in early January 1969. The band continued an intense touring schedule, which notably included the Atlanta Pop Festival (July 1969) and Woodstock (August 1969). Even though CCR was a headliner at Woodstock, none of their songs were included in the documentary and the accompanying soundtrack. John felt their performance had not been up to standard. They had ended up playing at 3:00 am in the morning after the Grateful Dead, when only few people had been awake. It would take until 1994 when four of the tunes from that night were included in a commemorative box set titled Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music.

Ten days prior to Woodstock, CCR’s third studio record Green River was released. Four more albums followed: Willy And The Poor Boys (November 1969), Cosmo’s Factory (July 1970), Pendulum (November 1970) and Mardi Gras (April 1972). By the time this last record appeared, serious tensions over CCR’s artistic and business direction had emerged between John Fogerty and Cook and Clifford. In late 1970, Tom Fogerty already had left the band, which since had been a trio. In mid-October 1972, CCR broke up officially. Time to get to some music!

Susie Q, CCR’s breakthrough song from their first studio album, was recorded in January 1968 and appeared in June that year. Originally, the tune was released by Dale Hawkins in May 1957. It was co-written by him and Robert Chaisson, a member of his band. Due to CCR’s extended version, the single was split in parts one and two, which appeared on the A and B-sides, respectively.

Proud Mary from Bayou Country was the first of five no. 2 hits CCR scored on the Billboard Hot 100. Apparently, the band holds the record for achieving the most no. 2 singles without ever getting a no. 1 on that chart. Like pretty much all songs on the first four albums, the tune was written by John Fogerty. Various other artists have covered Proud Mary, most notably Ike & Tina Turner.

Green River is the title track of CCR’s third studio album from August 1969. The Fogerty tune is one of the no. 2 songs.

Down On The Corner is the opener of Willy And The Poor Boys, CCR’s fourth studio record and the third album the band released in 1969. The tune was also released as a single and became another hit for the band, climbing to no. 3. on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fortunate Son, another track from Willy And The Poor Boys, was the B-side of the Down On The Corner single.

Cosmo’s Factory, CCR’s fifth studio record from July 1970, became the band’s most successful album, topping the Billboard 200 and the LP charts in the UK, Canada and Australia, among others. Here’s a clip of Up Around The Bend.

Another tune from Cosmo’s Factory I like in particular is Who’ll Stop The Rain.

The aforementioned Have You Ever Seen The Rain is from the band’s sixth studio album Pendulum, the final record with Tom Fogerty. If I could only choose one CCR song, it would probably be this one. I totally dig the Hammond in that tune!

Here is Hey Tonight, another outstanding song.

I’d like to conclude this playlist with Someday Never Comes from CCR’s final album Mardi Gras. Unlike the band’s previous records, songwriting and production were shared among Fogerty and Cook and Clifford, something Fogerty had fiercely opposed in the past. While Fogerty’s previous leadership may have been dictatorial, the record’s mixed to poor reviews indicate that a democratic approach wasn’t working well for CCR. Perhaps tellingly, Someday Never Comes and the other Fogerty tracks on the album are the best.

Despite CCR’s relatively short four-year career, they sold 30 million albums and singles in the U.S. alone. The band is ranked at no. 82 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists from December 2010. In 1993, CCR were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Sadly, Fogerty refused to perform with Cook and Clifford during the induction ceremony. His brother Tom had passed away in 1990.

Sources: Wikipedia; Creedence Online; Rolling Stone; YouTube