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| John Fogerty | Stu Cook | Tom Fogerty | Doug Clifford |
In 1958, rock music had passed its infancy. It was more like a toddler.
These days, every high school in America (and in most places around the world) has several
rock bands slugging it to play parties and concerts, in 1958 rock was not reputable. Not
many high schools had a rock band, let alone junior highs.
Potola Jr. High, in the East Bay San Francisco Suburb of El Cerrito did. Called The Blue
Velvets, they came together when John Fogerty and Doug Clifford discovered a mutual love
of the blues, R&B and rock and roll. John bought an 80 dollar Sears Silvertone guitar
and amp with a loan co-signed by his mom, earning the $88 to pay it back by delivering
newspapers. He retreated to his room in the basement of his mother's house and taught
himself how to play. Doug balanced a used snare drum on a flower pot stand and played with
two sticks he had lathed down from a couple of old pool cues.
Not satisfied with the sound, they invited Doug's friend Stu Cook to join. Stu had studied
classical piano for years, but also was hooked on the local R&B station, KWBR, in
Oakland. Stu and Doug were born within hours of each other and because of their last
names, never sat far from each other in school. The group became the Blue Velvets. By the
end of 1959, they were playing sock hops, fairs and parties around the area.
Despite being one of the few 'teen bands' in the area, there were just so many sock hops
they could play, and during the winter, county fairs are hard to come by. Still eager to
perfect their craft, by 1961 the Blue Velvets were hanging around the local recording
studios, backing up local artists. In 1959, the group made their first record with John on
guitar, Doug on drums and Stu on piano. John recalled the song. "I had my garage band
all through junior high and high school, and a semi-recording career, meaning I made my
first record when I was in the ninth grade. Three of us from Creedence were the back-up
band on a record by James Powell, a black singer from Richmond, California, on a small
label, Christy Records. It was actually played on a local rhythm and blues station -- I
think it was KWBR -- for about three weeks. It was a typical four-chord slow doowop song
called 'Beverly Angel..'"
At the same time the Blue Velvet's were establishing themselves, John's older brother Tom
also a gigged locally as a musician and singer. He was doing the high school dance circuit
with a band called The Playboys. His vocals were so impressive that he was asked to join
one of the top groups in the area, Spider Webb and the Insects. They say he did a version
of Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance" that would elicit shrieks of delight
from the girls in the audience. He also would occasionally sit in with his brother's band.
Spider Webb and The Insects broke up in 1959. Shortly after they recorded the tune with
Powell, Tom asked his brother's band to back him on a demo. While their friends and family
enjoyed the recording of Tom's two tunes, the artists like Pat Boone to whom they sent it
returned the tunes with rejection notices. Tom wanted to keep his rock and roll dreams
alive, although he was already married and working for the local utility company. He
convinced Stu, Doug and his younger brother that he could be an asset to them. He was,
after all, considerably older (four years) and already, through his days with Spider Webb,
was a local hero on vocals. John had not yet started singing, so most of the Blue Velvets
repertoire was instrumental. By Fall of 1960, Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets (as they
were now billed) played all of the usual haunts, the school sock hops, parties, fairs and
the like throughout Northern California.
They also continued to record demos. In 1961, a small Bay Area record company called
Orchestra decided they liked a tape of two Fogerty and Fogerty compositions called
"Come On Baby" and "Oh! My Love" enough to press them.. A month later,
Orchestra released another pair of Fogerty and Fogerty compositions, "Have You Ever
Been Lonely" and "Bonita." In June, 1962, Orchestra gave the band one more
chance. They put out Tommy Fogerty and The Blue Velvets' "Yes You Did," backed
with "Now You're Not Mine." The record did far more poorly than the previous
release. "It died," Tom would say years later, "before it even came
out." This would be the last record Tommy Fogerty and The Blue Velvets ever put out.
In 1963, a jazz artist named Vince Guaraldi put out a single called "Cast Your Fate
To The Wind." It became that rarest of entities, a jazz instrumental hit. PBS did a
special on the "Anatomy of a Hit." Watching this special, the band got excited
when they discovered the label was Fantasy, still across the bay in San Francisco. The
fact that a local record company was breaking music on a national scale impressed the
band. In March of 1964, John and Tom took some Blue Velvet's original instrumentals to
Fantasy, hoping to sell the tunes to Guaraldi.
The band's energy and audacity impressed Fantasy records co-founder Max Weiss. He signed
them as a rock group rather than just for their instrumentals. He also suggested they
change their name, the Blue Velvets sounding so passe and 50s. They chose The Visions.
Between the time they recorded "Little Girl (Does Your Mama Know)" b/w
"Don't Tell Me No Lies" and the release of the 45, Beatlemania happened. Hoping
to capitalize on this, without having to go to England and sign a Merseybeat band, Weiss
released the record as "The Golliwogs" a sobriquet the band would live with for
the next three and a half years.
Like the Blue Velvets before them, the Golliwogs played frat parties, military bases, and,
despite being considerably shy of their twentyfirst birthdays (except for Tom, who had
four years on the rest of the band) bars up and down the West Coast. The public address
systems at most of their gigs were of dubious or nonexistent quality. This proved to be a
bit of a strain on Tom. During a down period in the band, John had taken a two week gig up
in Oregon and developed some confidence in his own singing. John started taking over the
vocal chores. He screamed the vocal to compensate for the poor PA systems and developed
that raspy, blues dripping holler that would be his trademark from then on.
Stu, in the meantime, was moving from piano to electric bass. Tom was becoming more
proficient on guitar. They started working out these musical changes at any venue that
would pay them for playing. One of these places was a go go bar in Berkeley called The
Monkey Inn, which they would later describe as "a scuzzy beer tavern." It played
a formative roll in the band's development.
Being musicians was not paying the bills, though. Now out of High School, the Golliwogs
had to go to work to support their musical habit. Tom had his job with the power company
and a young family. Stu and Doug went to San Jose State College, pledging the same frat.
John got on the payroll at Fantasy as a shipping clerk. They practiced evenings and played
weekends. John honed his chops in the studio. And the Golliwogs made records. These were
also formative years for John Fogerty the songwriter. He worked hard at his craft, but in
retrospect, he called most of the Golliwogs' songs "very contrived. Everything I
could think of in a commercial record, I'd stick in."
During October of '65 they recorded a song called "Brown Eyed Girl" (not the Van
Morrison tune). It started to make a buzz and actually sold better than 10,000 copies. It
was the only single the Golliwogs made that wasn't a total stiff. However the follow up to
"Brown Eyed Girl," a Tom Fogerty composition called "Walk on the
Water" failed to generate any excitement at all. (An updated version on Creedence
Clearwater's debut album several years later, would.). The Golliwogs remained undaunted
and kept on honing their craft.
They did the frat/bar/club scene for three years. Doug had quit school and gone to work by
this time. Stu's dad, a lawyer, had a law school all picked out for his son, now into his
last year at San Jose State. Tom was into his fifth year with the power company. Uncle Sam
notified John and Doug that he wanted them. They became reservists in different branches
of the service. During their six months of active duty, the band got put on a back burner.
Stu graduated at about the same time as John and Doug finished their tour of active duty.
While they still faced monthly meetings and camp, this meant nothing more inconvenient
than going entire weekends without sleep every now and again. However, none of the
Golliwogs were kids anymore. By the Summer of 1967, the members of the band faced hard
choices about what to do when they grew up. The fate of the Golliwogs was uncertain.
Stu sold the car his father had given him as a graduation gift. He and Doug rented a small
pink house, where the band hung out and rehearsed. Tom quit his job. They pooled their
money, paying off the creditors with the shotguns and leaving the rest until they also got
nasty. They played as often as they could get jobs, and the money started to get a little
better, but not much.
By fall, the band was in pretty dire straits The Weiss Brothers had been in the record
business for nearly 20 years, and had a lucrative plastics business even before that. They
were ready to get out of the business and take it easy. Saul Zaentz, a salesman for the
company, put together a group of investors and bought Fantasy. As a shipping clerk,
Fogerty knew Zaentz, and Zaentz knew Fogerty. They had a good relationship. He told John
that he liked the Golliwogs, but they needed to make some changes. He saw what was
happening in the Bay Area music scene with the rise of "underground radio" and
venues like the Filmore presenting shows with groups like The Grateful Dead and The Great
Society (who would become the Jefferson Airplane). They changed the name to Creedence
Clearwater Revival, after a friend of a friend of Tom's, Credence Nuball. The first name,
with its connotations of believability and integrity, appealed to the group. Clearwater
also had two meanings. It came initially from a beer commercial, but also resonated with
the burgeoning environmental movement of the time. Revival, however, had one meaning. It
was the band's aspiration, that after four years as the Golliwogs, after ten years of
playing together, this new change in their fortunes would take the band where they all
knew it could go. John would often say, "The most important part was revival."
The newly named band released a single, Porterville, then went into the studio to cut
their album. One of the tunes they cut was an extended version of one of their live
favorites, Dale Hawkins' "Susie Q." Even before the album was pressed,
"Suzy Q" was on the radio. KMPX one of the more popular free-form FM stations in
the Bay Area, played tapes the band brought them after the band had supported a DJ strike,
playing a benefit concert, and the like. So even before the record came out, it started to
generate excitement on the West Coast. They played to a packed house at the LA club The
Cheetah. Bill Drake, one of the most powerful people in pop radio at the time, decided he
really liked the tune and suggested it to the radio stations that used his services.
At this juncture, though, the band couldn't go too far from home. Doug and John still had
to get to reserve camp one weekend a month. This impediment disappeared as they both got
discharged from the service at almost the same time. In 1969 the group charted with three
separate albums. Their eponymous debut, Creedence Clearwater Revival peaked at #52. Bayou
Country peaked at #7, largely on the strength of the monster hit single, "Proud
Mary." That tune topped out at #2 on the charts, beginning of a long history of songs
by the band that go shut out of the top spot on the chart. The third LP of the year, Green
River also hits #7, the song "Bad Moon Rising" peaking at #2.
The band headlined at Woodstock, although by the time they got on, following the Grateful
Dead, it was three in the morning. Few people were awake to see them. They didn't want to
be in the film because none of them were particularly happy with the performance. They
weren't on any of the albums because Cotillion (the label on which the film soundtrack
came out) couldn't strike an agreement with Fantasy for release rights on their biggest
money maker. Anything CCR, at the height of their fame, came out on Fantasy. [The 1994
Atlantic Records release of the four-CD remastered Woodstock set features 5 Creedence
songs from their performance. Ed. Note]
Willy and the Poor Boys, appeared near the beginning of 1970, peaking at #3 on the album
charts. The single "Down on the Corner," released late in 1969, foreshadowed the
album. The a-side of the singe reaches a chart peak of #3. The flip side, "Fortunate
Son," has a chart peak of #14. The album also featured several other notable songs,
like a reworking of Leadbelly's "Midnight Special." "It Came Out Of the
Sky" showed John's prescience as a songwriter, taking one of the first musical swipes
at Ronald Regan. The band toured all over America, mostly playing weekends.
After ten years of struggle, the year and a half of astonishing success started to spawn
dissension in the band. Fogerty took the reigns hard. When the band recorded "Down On
the Corner," one band member complained, `This isn't rock and roll.' Looking for
outside satisfaction, Doug produced a record for Mark Spoelestra. Cosmo's Factory came out
in September of 70. The album has a chart peak at #1, both in America and in England, the
band's only #1 album over there. "Traveling Band" had already had a chart peak
at #2. "Who'll Stop The Rain," the single's B-side, hit #13. One of Fogerty's
first public political statements (aside from the gentle jibe in "It Came Out of the
Sky,") the song is an allegory about the situation in Vietnam.
When the Beatles announced their break up in the winter of 1970, CCR became the most
successful band and the biggest singles act in the world, despite never landing a #1
single. Always very private, the group never became stars personally to befit their status
on the pop charts. They sought to change that with the release of Pendulum. Before the
album's release, they had a fan type book written. Called "Inside Creedence",
the book took about six weeks from the time it was conceived until it was actually
published, coincidental with the release of Pendulum. In fact, many copies of the book
were sold packaged with the record. The band also made a television special and had a
$30,000 press junket to ballyhoo the album. The record shipped a million copies.
There were signs of internal dissension at the junket party. Stu Cook beefed to Rolling
Stone about lack of respect he felt the band received. "We're tired of that riff
about John Fogerty's back-up band." Tom Fogerty, although one of the instigators of
the party, became reticent during the event. He's the only band member not directly quoted
in the coverage.
In 1971, Tom left the band. "I started out in this business in 1958 as a stand up
singer," he said later. "I got really frustrated at not being able to be
everything I wanted to be when I started out…I left because of a falling out between
John and I about the music itself and how much I could contribute."
The band decided to continue as not only a trio, but a democracy. Unfortunately, the
members all had different ideas about how to democratize the band. The result is Mardi
Gras, referred to as the worst record ever made by a major band. After touring Europe as a
trio, the band called it a day on October 16, 1972.