THE MORE EXCLUSIVE STORY OF CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL !
What actually happened during the time;
The Blue Velvets
became
The Golliwogs
and finally
Creedence Clearwater Revival
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Potola Jr. High, in the East Bay - San Francisco,
in the Suburb of El Cerrito - that´s the location where
"The Blue Velvets" started. John Fogerty and Doug Clifford found out that they had a mutual love of the
Blues, R&B and Rock and Roll. The year was 1959.
John´s mother bought him an 80 dollar Sears Silvertone guitar and amplifier. He lived at his mothers,
started to learn how to play the guitar in the basement, and
made his first recording in the ninth grade.
Doug started out with a drum put together by ropes, and a couple of drumsticks that he also made himself
from a couple of pool cues. Not too satisfied with the sound, the they invited Doug Cliffords friend Stu Cook to
join them. Stu had studied the piano and was hooked on the local R&B station, KWBR, in Oakland. Stu and Doug
were born within 24hrs of each other but on different days. Doug on April 24th 1945, Stu on April 25th 1945.
The group they formed was called "The Blue Velvets". By the end of 1959, they
had some private gigs at
birthday party's, school dances and so on, always close to the area where they
lived.
There were not too many teenage bands in the
area, so the jobs that where there, went to them.
It was not enough, though. During the winter, some jobs where not available because of the outdoor
weather climate (they played at a lot of outdoor parties).
The group did not give up, even though life was tough. It was during this year, 1959, "The Blue Velvets" made
their first recording. John played the guitar, Doug was on the drums and Stu was hammering on the piano.
The guys where the back-up band on a James Powell (from Richmond, California) record. It was on a small
label, Christy Records, and was played on a local rhythm and blues station for a couple of weeks.
The song was called "Beverly Angel". At the same time "The Blue Velvets" were trying to establish something
themselves. John's older brother Tom also worked locally as a musician and singer. He was in a band
called "The Playboys", and his vocals were so original and impressive that he was asked to join one of the
top groups in the area, "The Spider Webb and the Insects". He did, sometimes, sit in with his brothers band and
when "The Spider Web and the Insects" broke up in 1959, John asked Tom if he could back him up on a demo.
That Tom did !
In the autumn of 1960, "Tom Fogerty and The
Blue Velvets", as they now where called, played in different places,
like school sock hops, parties and fairs. But only in Northern California. They continued recording demos and in
1961, a small Bay Area record company called "Orchestra" listen to a demo and liked the two songs "Come On Baby"
and "Oh! My Love", written and performed by the two Fogerty brothers. One month
later, "Orchestra"
released another two songs made by the brothers, "Have You Ever Been Lonely" and "Bonita".
The Band did hang around the local recording studios a lot, asking to get a chance to back the local artists up in
their performance.
Later, Tom sent two songs to the famous artist
Pat Boone, who rejected them both. Since Tom always have had a
dream about Rock and Roll life since childhood, he tried to talk his younger brother into accepting him into the band and he
convinced him that he was too valuable to leave outside.
He actually convinced them all after proclaiming that through his days with "..
Spider Webb ..", he was a local hero on vocals.
John had not yet started singing, so most of "Tom Fogerty and The Blue Velvets" repertoire was instrumental.
"Orchestra" gave the band one more chance
back in June 1962. The company did put out Tom Fogerty and
The Blue Velvets song "Yes You Did", backed with "Now You're Not Mine". It was no success, at all.
This was the last record that Tom Fogerty and The Blue Velvets did put out.
In 1963, they came across that the record
company"Fantasy" was located across the bay in San Francisco.
They found out that this local company broke music on a national scale, and that impressed the band.
In March of 1964, John and Tom took some Blue
Velvets original instrumentals to Fantasy, hoping to sell the
tunes to Mr. Guaraldi. They had so much energy that the cofounder Max Weiss signed
signed them as a Rock
group rather than just for their instrumentals. Max wanted the band to change their name. They came out with
a new album: "The Visions". Now they recorded "Little Girl (Does Your Mama Know)" b/w "Don't Tell Me No Lies"
and later they released the 12" LP.
The Beatles broke through during `64 and Max
Weiss thought that he could capitalize on that era.
He released the record as "The Golliwogs", a name the band should have to live with for the next three and a half years.
Just like before, they played at parties and bars up and down the West Coast of the USA, but now as The Golliwogs.
Tom took some time off from the band and got
a two weeks job up in Oregon, leaving John to take over the vocal
part and when Tom returned, John started taking over the vocal chores. He screamed the vocal to compensate
for the poor PA systems and developed that raspy, blues dripping voice that would be his trademark from then on.
Stu, in the meantime, was changing from piano to electric bass. Tom became more like an proficient guitarist.
Being musicians was not good enough for paying the bills. They all had to get work aside and later Stu and
Doug went to College. John got one foot into Fantasy and worked there as a shipping clerk. The group
practiced in evenings and had gigs in the weekends. After a while, The Golliwogs
made records.
The following years were very formative for
John Fogerty as a songwriter. He worked hard at it. In October of
1965 they recorded a song called "Brown Eyed Girl" and it started selling better than anything before had done.
It actually sold in over 10.000 copies, but it was the only 7" that they got really
rollin'´. The
follow-up, "Walk On Water" (written by Tom), failed at all levels. This song should
later be on their LP
"Creedence Clearwater Revival", but not till they changed their name to CCR.
"The Golliwogs" did not frighten because things
did not go right. No, they kept on playing at bars, etc.
Doug did quit school and had a work. Stu Cook´s father wanted the son to become a lawyer.
Tom was still at the power company. The Army wanted John and Doug to se other parts of the world
and they became reservists in different branches of the service. During their six months of active duty,
nothing really came out of the band activities. Stu finished and graduated from school at about the same
time John and Doug finished their tour of active duty.
To catch up in time, they started working day and night during weekends, sometimes
without any sleep at all.
However, the boys in the band had changed
from teens into grown men, who knew what they wanted. There where
one problem. What should they do if the band did not get lucky and had some breakthrough´s? They all felt that
after the long time that had passed, the faith in the band was not the best.
They all started to sell personal things to raise money for the future. They got a house and that´s where they
hung-out - rehearsing. Tom did leave his job and put all their money in a pool, holding in the payments and played
as often as they could. Their economy did get a little better, but not much.
Now The Weiss Brothers were ready to retire
and leave the business. A salesman by the name of Saul Zaentz put
some people together, invested in buying Fantasy Record company Since Fogerty
and Zaentz had known each other
since long time back and had a good relationship, Zaentz told John that there were a future in the band
"The Golliwogs" but that they needed to change their name. They came up with "Creedence Clearwater Revival",
after a friends name. This was in 1968.
Firms like Filmore presented shows with groups like The Grateful Dead and The Great Society (changed name later
to Jefferson Airplane).
The word "Creedence" came out of the friends name, "Clearwater" from a beer and
"Revival" was what they wanted to achieve.
CCR released one 7 inch "Porterville" and
started to work on their first album. The song "Suzy Q" were their strongest
card. It was earlier released by "Dale Hawkins", one of the bands live favorites
and even before it came on a record,
the master tape was run in one of the local FM-stations in the Bay Area. The broadcast
generated an excitement among
the people on the West Coast.
CCR played at The Cheetah Club in Los Angeles and a powerful man within the music business by the name of Bill Drake,
said that he liked the music and that he would talk to the radio stations that
used his services.
At this time, the band could not go too far from home since Doug and John still had some business in the Army.
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In the year of 1969 CCR had three different
albums on the charts. Peaked at #52 did "Creedence Clearwater Revival" and
"Bayou Country" at #7, much with the help of the monster 7 inch hit "Proud Mary" (became a #2 later).
Now started a never ending story of hits on the different charts. Their third LP "Green River" peaked at #7 and the great
hit "Bad Moon Rising" (7 inch) stopped at #2.
The Woodstock festival
came along and the band was there. That they performed at three o´clock
in the morning, and
that much people where asleep, did not really help them on their way towards fame.
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Everything that the group produced as CCR,
came out on "Fantasy". In beginning of 1970, the album
"Willy and the Poorboys" peaked at #3 in the US. The "Down on the corner" 7 inch, came too at a stop
at #3 in the US but was # 2 in the Scandinavian countries. It was released too late. The b/w "Fortunate Son"
reached #14 in the US.
This album had some songs that reached high on the charts, like the "Midnight Special" (made in original by
Leadbelly´s) and "It came out of the sky" (both hits in Sweden). That song really showed that John Fogerty was
fit as a songwriter.
The band started touring all over the US and after ten years of hard times, things started to go in the right direction.
No, hard times was not over. Now, after 1,5 years, there where an dissension in the band. John Fogerty really
wanted to rule the band and had no thought of leaving things to someone else. He was the leader of the band - and
so it should be in the future too.
When "Down on the corner" was recorded, one band member felt that it was NO Rock and Roll song they had recorded.
The LP "Cosmo´s Factory" was produced by Doug Clifford and it did hit the record
shops in September of 1970. The
album peaked the charts at #1 in both the US, England and the Scandinavian countries. Cosmo´s Factory became
the only album that peaked on #1 in Europe. Some songs of the LP was hits from
the start. Like "Travellin' band"
that, as a 7 inch, peaked #1 in Sweden in 1970 but only #2 in the US, "Who´ll stop the rain" was #13 at the highest in
the US and this was the first time John had ever written a political message in one of his songs. It´s about the
situation in Vietnam!
In the end of 1970, CCR became the most successful
band and released the most 7 inch in the world. The members
never became stars in person and they, might have thought, that the release of
third album "Pendulum" should
change that. Together with the release of the album, they let out a book called "Inside Creedence" and the book
was included in the buy of the record. They sold quite a lot of that package, after all.
They used the press to advertise their release and spent around 30.000 US dollars on advertising that release.
The album sold in over 1 million copies and there was heat in the air among the members of CCR. Now Stu Cook
told the reporters of The Rolling Stones Magazine what lack of respect the band
received. He was tired of that
they always wrote about John and the others, but not about him.
Tom Fogerty left the band in 1971 because
he was not happy with the rules inside the group. The road from lead
singer in 1958 to not being recognized at all, was too much. There was an argument between John and Tom that
made Tom take the decision to leave the band.
The band continued as a trio for a while but
the members had to different ideas about how the band should be run.
The result of the disorder, is "Mardi Gras", the album that really flopped in the US.
They did one tour in Europe as a trio and
than they dissolved the band on the 16 th of October in the year of 1972.
That was the end of one of the best Rock groups in the
world.
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