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Any John Fogerty Fans out there? CCR
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The Steel Guitar Forum
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Any John Fogerty Fans out there? CCR
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This topic was originally posted in this forum: Wanted To Buy |
| Author | Topic: Any John Fogerty Fans out there? CCR |
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Larry R Member Posts: 553 |
posted 31 December 1999 06:16 PM
Has anybody heard of some Creedence Clearwater Revival material on steel? I know this is probably breaking out of traditional country but it seems like someone would have recorded some of CCR's material on steel. After all, we have the Beatles on steel. Larry R ------------------ |
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Jay Ganz Member Posts: 1626 |
posted 01 January 2000 08:44 AM
Remember when John tried to play steel on some songs years back? I think he had a ZB Custom back then. ------------------ |
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Dennis Detweiler Member Posts: 1700 |
posted 01 January 2000 08:45 AM
Emmons did "Down On The Corner" on the Suite Steel Album. I bought the album in the late 1970s. Don't know if they are still available. I think the album was produced to demonstrate and promote the versatility of the steel guitar. Other steel artists were on the album also. DD |
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B Bailey Brown Member Posts: 606 |
posted 02 January 2000 01:52 PM
To me this is an interesting topic. John Fogerty came out of Louisiana if I am not mistaken. As far as I am concerned, that area of the world has so MANY varied musical influences that it is unreal! There is country, blues, Cajun…and it goes on and on! If you listen to "Down On The Corner", that is a country song. Granted it may have been done by a bunch of longhaired San Francisco hippies (At that time)…but it is defiantly country! That may be why Buddy put it on an album. Then again, "You Ain't goin' Nowhere" by the Birds (Written by Bob Dylan) was pretty "country"…and that was just a bunch of LA hippies! IMHO, several of CCR's tunes were VERY country. The rest of them are fairly simple 3 and 4 chord rock & roll tunes. They were never very complicated. They just made "music" that made you want to get off your butt and listen to it! I can find nothing wrong with that! B. Bailey Brown |
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Larry R Member Posts: 553 |
posted 03 January 2000 05:57 AM
Thanks, for your replies. Yes I remember when John tried to go full-blown country. I'm glad he stuck with the Les Paul and gave up steel. He has really honed his chops over the past 10 yrs. though. By the way, he was born just outside of Berkely, Ca. for those interested. I too thought for a long time that he came out of the South but later learned he's from CALIF. |
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CHIP FOSSA Member Posts: 2536 |
posted 03 January 2000 07:03 AM
Fogerty put out a solo album, I think right in the midst of CCR, called "The Blue Ridge Rangers". I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that John played all instruments on this venture, including steel guitar. One of the songs I remember was an uptempo version of "Cottonfields". ------------------ |
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Peter Dollard Member Posts: 705 |
posted 03 January 2000 08:49 AM
The album Fogerty played steel on was called "The Blue Ridge Rangers" and was released after CCR had broken up. I believe he played every instument on the album and had a top ten hit with Jambalaya. If you combine that with the twenty number one hits he wrote maybe his steel playing could be forgiven. Pete. |
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Mark Tomeo Member Posts: 400 |
posted 03 January 2000 10:20 AM
Despite all the swamp, delta, country imagery in his music, Fogarty is a native Californian. That "Green River," "Proud Mary" and "Born on the Bayou" stuff was all imaginary. One of CCR's hits, "Lookin' Out My Back Door," has a Dobro break and a whiff of the Bakersfield sound. "The Blue Ridge Rangers" was a either a late CCR side project or the first thing he did after CCR broke up. Fogarty played all the instruments and the album art shows a bunch of guys standing on a hillside, but it's trick photography - it's really all shots of him put together. Besides handling lead vocals and lead guitar for CCR, Fogerty wrote and produced all of their songs, overshadowing the input of other band members. Relationships between John Fogerty and rest of the group grew increasingly strained. In February 1971, Tom Fogerty announced his departure from the band to work as a solo artist. The remaining group continued to work as a trio. The first single of reorganized CCR, "Sweet Hitchhiker" came out in July. The band's major tour of the U.S., Europe, Australia and Japan began in July and met with a reasonably good reception. On their seventh and last studio album, "Mardi Gras", Stu Cook and Doug Clifford were granted democratic rights. The album was a critical and commercial failure. After the break-up, the rhythm section of Stu Cook and Doug Clifford followed pursuits independently and together in Don Harrison Band, Southern Pacific, and Sir Douglas Quintet. In 1995, they started a band called Creedence Clearwater Revisited. With three additional musicians, they tour the world and perform Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. Tom Fogerty continued his solo career without major commercial success. He died on Sept. 6, 1990, of respiratory failure. John Fogerty began a long path of legal and contractual disputes with Saul Zentz and Fantasy Records over song ownership and publishing rights. He refused to record any new material under the Creedence name on Fantasy's terms. In the mid-70's he worked a deal allowing him a release from his contract with Fantasy but the legal disputes and lawsuits were not over. In 1985, Fantasy sued him for plagiarizing one of his Creedence-era compositions. Post-breakup performances of CCR have been extremely rare. They all gathered together in the recording sessions of the "Zephyr National" album of Tom Fogerty in 1974. They also did two on-off performances together at Tom Fogerty's wedding in 1979 and their high school reunion in 1983. A decade later, CCR was nominated to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but Fogerty refused to play with his former bandmates at the festivities. In the mid-'90s, Fogarty finally made a driving trip through the Mississippi delta region. The album that resulted, "Blue Moon Swamp," has a fairly significant Dobro influence, despite Fogarty's being pictured playing a Strat on the cover. In interviews at the time of its release (1997) Fogarty talked about how the guitar sound he was seeking was revealed to him in a dream and it was the Dobro sound. He said he worked real hard to learn to play Dobro properly before recording the album. |
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CHIP FOSSA Member Posts: 2536 |
posted 03 January 2000 10:45 AM
Thanks, Pete & Mark. I knew I was in the ballpark [actually, Centerfield]. Yeah John got hammered on a lot of fronts. Don't blame him for being bitter. I saw a DOCU on him on one of the TV channels and he pretty much layed it out as you guys have mentioned. Still love him and CCR, tho. And, BTW, simplicity is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned..........as B Bailey has mentioned. Fogerty really wrote for the working, blue collar person. Any fool can be complicated, but it takes brilliance [hate to use that G word] to be simple. Like Picasso said once about his art..........it took me a lifetime to paint like a 2 year old. ------------------ |
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Jason Odd Member Posts: 2665 |
posted 03 January 2000 07:51 PM
Actually on 'Lookin' Out My Backdoor', Fogerty actually namechecks Buck Owens. But a lot of those country-rockers and pop band members really dug Buck's sound. Chris Darrow who played with Kaleidoscope, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the Corvettes backing Linda Ronstandt among other things, well he mentioned he saw the Buckaroos around '67. Billy Darnell a Californian boy who played with Dewey Martin, Starbuck and Dog Kershaw in the early 1970's used to hang with don Rich and see the Buckaroos live. Gram Parsons who was in the International Submarine Band, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, wasreally obsessively into Buck's sound before he caught on to Merle Haggard as well. Chris Hillman in a 1965 Byrds interview for a teen magazine, mentioned that his favourite acts were 'John Lee Hooker and Buck Owens'. ------------------ |
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Larry R Member Posts: 553 |
posted 04 January 2000 07:12 AM
Mark T - I see you've done your homework. Have you read the autobiography of CCR "Bad Moon Rising" released last year? I'd be dead if I had gone through all the stuff that Fogerty went through, yet he doesn't look his age. |
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Mark Tomeo Member Posts: 400 |
posted 04 January 2000 01:19 PM
Larry: Actually, no. I don't know why I remember all that stuff about Fogarty and Creedence. There's another book out now, "Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival," but I haven't read it either. I wonder if it answers the question of whether Fogarty is the guy who introduced plaid flannel shirts to rock'n'roll. |
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Larry R Member Posts: 553 |
posted 04 January 2000 01:51 PM
Mark, I don't know about the flannel shirts but he sure caused the Black Les Pauls' to go up in price. I bought my first Flannel shirt when CCR hit the scene. I tried to play everything they played. I never could figure out what that strange sounding acoustic instrument was that I heard on their early albums. It wasn't til' about 10 yrs ago when I started getting musically educated that I realized it was a Dobro. I always thought that Proud Mary was played in the key of C til I saw him play it in a detuned tuning. I guess theres no instrument he can't play. I've noticed that he has not played the harmonica in the last 10 yrs. That was something he could do quite well in his early days. |
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B Bailey Brown Member Posts: 606 |
posted 04 January 2000 08:52 PM
Mark, Thanks for correcting me on that one. I could have sworn that I had read he was from the south someplace. Oh well, he is a heck of a musician, songwriter and producer. I guess it goes to prove that you don't have to "be" from someplace to capture a certain feel and style to the music you make! B. Bailey Brown |
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Michael Douchette Member Posts: 675 |
posted 05 January 2000 09:02 PM
John just moved to Nashville a few weeks ago... not important, just FYI... understand he went over to Bill Hullett's house and visited a while... Mikey ------------------ |
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If you really want to get analytical, there is really no difference between a 3 chord country song and a 3 chord rock & roll song…other than a different feel. It just depends on what your "ear" gravitates toward.