The proof of John Fogerty's genius
Posted by David Hepworth on 26 August 2008 - 3:43pm.
Universal are about to reissue Creedence Clearwater Revival's classic albums. Me and Fraser are just playing them and noticed a bunch of things:
1. Even forty years later they're hair-raisingly good
2. John Fogerty had so many great songs that he could afford to put his gems way back in the running order, something that nobody dares do nowadays.
Examples:
"Up Around The Bend" is track seven on Cosmo's Factory, "Who'll Stop The Rain" is ninth and "Long As I Can See The Light" is the closer.
"Fortunate Son" is sixth on Willy & The Poor Boys.
"Proud Mary" is sixth on Bayou Country.
"Bad Moon Rising" is the fifth track on Green River.
Has anybody else ever strewn around their jewels with such confidence?
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Unsurpassed
Even his solo stuff is ace. The Old Man Down The Road is vintage Creedence.
Unkind.
Very funny, but unkind.
The flipside
There's a perfect example of the modern approach on the Little Jackie album. First of all, it's a really strong record, and it blows my "modern R&B albums never have more than four good tracks on them" theory right out of the water.
But the track-listing is completely top-loaded. If you were to rate all the tracks in order of strength, with the best at the top of the list and the weakest at the bottom, you'd be replicating the track listing precisely. It's as if record companies are so convinced of our withered attention spans that they've decided we're unlikely to make it to the end, or even halfway though.
I blame Kirsty McColl.
Creedence
Funnily enough, I've had Chronicle playing in the car this week. Greil Marcus' liner notes pretty much sum it up:
"Because of the total absence of gimmicks, posing, and prettifying, their records stand up today far better than almost anything else made at the time. The tracks are deceptive: beautiful, lovingly made, they sound about as contrived as the weather."
The Fabs,
inevitably.
Fabs
Although Marcus seems to have forgotten about The Band, and other late 60s/early 70s music that he has raved about at one time or another, I think to say that CCR's albums have less gimmickry than, say, Sgt Pepper - and have aged better - is not so outrageous a claim.
As the answer to DH's original question, however, I agree.
Clapton
Tucked 'Layla' away as the penultimate track on the album of the same name. I read somewhere that albums are usually sequenced so that the weakest track is the last but one. There is some truth to this ('Layla' being a notable exception).
Track 7
I was told by a record producer of some repute that in the vinyl days Track 7 was the place to position your best track. Second track on side two.
well i hope that yourself and Gareth
are happy with yourselves!
You realise what the heck half the Massive are going to spend the evening doing, don't you? Making lists of albums with 'not crap' second last tracks and 'Track 7s that suck', that's what!
Blue Moon Swamp Rising
The first single I ever bought was 'Bad Moon Rising' Not expecting too much but only having the one record I played the B side - which was the classic 'Lodi'. Many album tracks would have made hit singles (eg 'Don't Look Now It Ain't You Or Me') but they didn't need them. A few years ago I bought 'Blue Moon Swamp' which was released in the 90s. This is excellent as well. True, Fogerty has ploughed much the same furrow for many years - but it is a damn good one!
Here's a good Fogerty story...
...
including interview:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/28/proud-moment-with-dyla...
here's the actual occasion:
Travellin' Band
I make that four choruses, three verses and two guitar solos, all in under two minutes. Now that's genius. Or at least extraordinary value for money.