When you think about roots rock, swamp rock, blues rock, Southern rock, country rock, and blue-eyed soul you have to talk about Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the talented man behind this legendary band's music is John Fogerty. Fogerty was the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter who wrote and composed some of the band's biggest hits from "Bad Moon Rising," "Have You Ever Seen The Rain," and "Long As I Can See The Light." But behind the music, who was the man who wrote such poignant grassroots lyrics and melodies? Here's what nobody told you about John Fogerty -- and it might surprise you.
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00:00As the lead singer and primary creative force in Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty
00:07helped define rock and roll history. Both in his music career and outside of it, he's
00:13lived an eventful and remarkable life. So let's go up around the bend and discover the
00:18untold truth of John Fogerty.
00:22Through his work in Creedence Clearwater Revival and in his solo efforts, Fogerty has been
00:27one of the most prominent practitioners of swamp rock. That's a genre that combines hard
00:33rock with blues, folk, and various forms of music native to the Gulf Coast area of the
00:39American Southeast. Acting like a Louisiana boy is something Fogerty fully embraced, as
00:45he sang in a gritty, raspy voice with a strong twinge of a bayou-area accent on all of his
00:52Perhaps most famously on the CCR track, Born on the Bayou. But while Fogerty obviously
00:58loves and appreciates swamp rock and all that it represents, he isn't from the area. In
01:04fact, he was born far away from the bayou, as he arrived in the world in 1945 in Berkeley,
01:11California.
01:12The Golden State is known for a lot of musical styles, and thanks to Fogerty, one of those
01:17is a genre more properly associated with another part of the country entirely.
01:23The Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Fortunate Son, is a blistering takedown of young men
01:28who use their money, power, and connections to avoid serving in combat during the Vietnam
01:34War. It was released around the peak of the conflict in 1969, and thanks to its enduring
01:41cultural appeal, it's frequently used in movies set in that era. Fogerty composed
01:47the song in just 20 minutes, as he was inspired by his distaste for the lavish 1968 wedding
01:54between Dwight Eisenhower's grandson and Richard Nixon's daughter, which contrasted sharply
02:00with the war's violence and the protests of the day.
02:03But in a way, Fogerty was also a bit of a fortunate son himself. Around the time that
02:08he received his draft notice, he went to an Army recruiter and volunteered, hoping
02:14to be rewarded with a less dangerous assignment, and he wound up with a job as a supply clerk
02:19in the U.S. Army Reserve. He went through training at Fort Bragg and was stationed at
02:24Fort Knox, serving stateside for about two years in total. As he told Goldmine magazine
02:31in 1997,
02:32Luckily for me, I didn't have to go overseas or serve three years in the hardcore Army.
02:39Fogerty's experience is hardly the same as draft dodging, but he was certainly spared
02:43the worst of the war's horrors.
02:45I just want to say what a great country we live in, and God bless the men and women who
02:53protect us."
02:55In the late 60s and early 70s, when rock bands typically favored short and punchy names,
03:01Fogerty fronted a group with a long-winded, vaguely pretentious mouthful of a name. The
03:06three words in Creedence, Clearwater, Revival sounded like they were carefully chosen. Surely
03:12one would assume they must have some deeper meaning.
03:15When Saul Zantz of Fantasy Records signed the band, they were known as the Gollywogs,
03:21but Zantz hated that name. So he struck a deal. The band would come up with ten new
03:26name possibilities, and he'd come up with another ten, and they'd find one that everybody
03:31agreed on.
03:32As guitarist Tom Fogerty recalled in the book Bad Moon Rising, some of the suggestions included
03:38Muddy Rabbit, Deep Bottle Blue, and Creedence New Ball and the Ruby. His bandmates became
03:45obsessed with that last one, which was inspired by the real name of a friend of Tom's. Then
03:51they started surgically building a title, adding an E to turn Creedence into Creedence,
03:57thereby suggesting a creed, or a deeply held belief. And Clearwater was taken from an ad
04:03for Olympia Beer, which was produced from cool, clear water.
04:08"...water, the natural element."
04:11Then John Fogerty put those two words together with Revival, as the band felt like they were
04:16getting a second win with their record deal, and the rest is history.
04:21Creedence Clearwater Revival wasn't just about that hard and fast, dirty rock and roll, as
04:26they also occasionally released pleasant little ditties that made for great sing-alongs. Case
04:31in point, the joyful and jaunty Looking Out My Back Door. According to CCR drummer Doug
04:37Clifford, John Fogerty wrote the song for his son, Josh, who was just three years old
04:43at the time of composition.
04:45Looking Out My Back Door describes in great detail a wacky, circus-like procession witnessed
04:50by the narrator while he, as the title indicates, looks out his back door. Among the sights
04:56to behold are a cartwheeling giant, musician elephants, flying spoons, and a magician creating
05:03illusions. And as it turns out, Fogerty was inspired by a very un-rock and roll source,
05:09Dr. Seuss' 1937 book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. He knew his son
05:16would enjoy hearing his dad's voice coming out of the radio crooning some goofy lyrics.
05:21Despite the kid-friendly source material, the preponderance of weird events and magical
05:26creatures led many at the time to think the song actually celebrated mind-altering drugs.
05:32Vice President Spiro Agnew even publicly called out the psychedelic references that weren't
05:38quite there.
05:39In 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival took the John Fogerty composition, Travelin' Band,
05:46all the way to number two on the pop chart. It was a fast and hard-rocking song with howling
05:51vocals that spoke to the contemporary rise of heavy metal, but also felt like a classic
05:5750s rocker that someone like Little Richard could have recorded. That evocation was likely
06:02no accident, as Fogerty was a big fan of the flamboyant rock and roll pioneer.
06:08All those great early Little Richard songs, like Tutti Frutti and Good Golly Miss Molly,
06:14were recorded and released by Specialty Records, which signed the performer to an exploitative
06:20contract. The terms of that contract initially paid him $50 for the rights to songs with
06:25a half-cent royalty for each copy sold. Specialty controlled Good Golly Miss Molly, and in October
06:331971, the company felt that Travelin' Band was such an egregious rip-off of the Little
06:38Richard song that it sued Fogerty for $500,000 for copyright infringement. Ultimately, though,
06:45the case was eventually dropped.
06:48John Fogerty's older brother, Tom, was also a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
06:54Both Fogerty's originally had their own separate Northern California rock bands, and after
06:59Tom's group Spiderweb and the Insects flopped, he joined John in the group that would eventually
07:04become CCR. Tom could sing and write songs, but John quickly emerged as the more dominant
07:11frontman and composer. Only one song that Tom wrote, Walk on the Water, made it onto
07:18CCR's first album. Frustrated by his lack of creative input as CCR rose to the top of
07:24the rock world, Tom left the band in 1971.
07:28Disputes over the control of CCR's music further drove a wedge between the brothers. John contributed
07:34some work to Tom's 1974 album Zephyr National, but they remained distant until the end. Tom
07:41died from complications of AIDS in 1990 at age 48, reportedly contracting the disease
07:47from a blood transfusion he received after a surgical procedure. Years later, John was
07:53able to come to terms with the relationship. In 2019, he told Ultimate Classic Rock,
07:59"...At some point, I made a point to myself of forgiving my brother. I just felt like
08:04I had to do that because he wasn't around for me to get to work it out with him. I try,
08:09but he was so not connected to reality."
08:13Soon after Creedence Clearwater Revival disbanded in 1972, John Fogerty released a couple of
08:19solo albums, but neither sold well. Then, in 1976, he put together the album Hoodoo,
08:27but its single, You Got the Magic, tanked. Asylum Records opted to shelve the album,
08:33and it's never been officially released. Fogerty had to deal with that personal failure while
08:38still dealing with lingering issues over what he felt were unfair deals with Saul Zentz
08:43and CCR's label, Fantasy Records. Between 1975 and 1985, he didn't release any albums
08:51at all. He didn't start recording again until 1983, but then he abandoned an entire album
08:58because he thought it was subpar. Then, in 1985, he unleashed Centerfield, in which he
09:04worked out some demons. The songs Mr. Greed and Zantz Can't Dance were both about Zantz,
09:11although a slander lawsuit forced him to change the title of the latter to Vance Can't
09:16Dance. Nevertheless, the bitterness persisted. Fogerty didn't start playing his CCR songs
09:22live until 2004. A year later, he signed a new contract with, ironically enough, Fantasy
09:28Records. Zantz was out of the picture by this point, as the label had been sold to Concord
09:34Music Group.
09:36Eden's Clearwater Revival's fifth album, Cosmos Factory, released in 1970, is full of some
09:42classic songs, but its title speaks to simmering band turmoil. CCR used to practice in a Berkeley,
09:49California warehouse, and the atmosphere there, along with how Fogerty made drummer Doug Cosmo
09:55Clifford relentlessly rehearse, made it feel like a factory.
10:00Fogerty was not only the leader of CCR's musical direction, he was also the manager,
10:06which may not have been the ideal situation. As Clifford told Louder Sound,
10:11"[John was brilliant at all the musical things, but he had no experience at managing, particularly
10:17at the level we were involved at. It was a critical mistake, and ultimately it broke
10:22up the band."
10:23After CCR split, Fogerty thought that his bandmates betrayed him because they'd sold
10:28their right to vote on band decisions, and thus control of the band, to Saul Zantz. While
10:34Fogerty and his former bandmates remained distant over the years, their lawyers didn't.
10:40In the 90s, Clifford and bassist Stu Cook toured as Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
10:46Fogerty sued in 1996, as he controlled the CCR name. The parties reached an agreement
10:52in 2001 wherein Clifford and Cook paid Fogerty a royalty for billing themselves by the new
10:59name. They stopped paying that fee in 2011 when Fogerty disparaged Revisited in interviews,
11:05which was a violation of the legal agreement that led to even more lawsuits.
11:11Fogerty came back in a big way with his chart-topping 1985 release Centerfield. The album's title
11:17track is a nostalgic tune about baseball that soon became a standard played over the
11:22loudspeakers at major and minor league ballparks. The song was inspired by stories that Fogerty's
11:29father and older brothers told him about legendary ballplayers like Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth.
11:35As Fogerty recalled to MLB.com in 2010,
11:39"...when I was a little kid, there were no teams on the West Coast, so the idea of a
11:44major league team was really mythical to me. The players were heroes to me as long
11:49as I can remember."
11:50Because the San Francisco-born DiMaggio played Centerfield, Fogerty came to believe that
11:56that position in Yankee Stadium was, quote, "...the most hallowed place in all of the
12:01universe."
12:02In 2010, Fogerty was recognized for his unique contribution to the national pastime, as the
12:08National Baseball Hall of Fame honored Centerfield on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. Fogerty
12:15played live at the induction ceremony, and also donated his custom bat-shaped guitar
12:20to the museum.
12:21"...when I originally wrote this song, it was basically an 8-year-old boy saying thank you
12:28to baseball for all the joy and inspiration."
12:32Not only did John Fogerty resent Fantasy Records boss Saul Zantz, he also resented his former
12:38Creedence Clearwater Revival bandmates Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. That deep, longstanding
12:44animosity has prevented CCR from ever reuniting since their 1972 split. In fact, all four
12:52band members have played together again just once, in 1980, at Tom Fogerty's wedding.
12:58In 1993, John Fogerty was given a chance to let bygones be bygones when incoming president
13:04Bill Clinton asked CCR to play at his inauguration. But Fogerty passed on the gig. As he recalled
13:11in his memoir, Fortunate Son,
13:13"...I said, I'm not playing as a band with Creedence. I don't play with those guys. We
13:18will never play as a band again."
13:20John Fogerty is a man of his word, and CCR still hasn't played music together, though
13:26the surviving original members did all share a stage in 1993, when they were inducted into
13:32the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But when it came time for the customary performance for
13:37the newly-inducted act, Fogerty played with rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Robbie
13:42Robertson instead, as he'd prevented Cook and Clifford from taking the stage.