Creedence Clearwater Revival Cosmo's Factory

If anything, CCR's third album Green River represents the full flower of their classic sound initially essayed on its predecessor, Bayou Country. One of the differences between the two albums is that Green River is tighter, with none of the five-minute-plus jams that filled out both their debut and Bayou Country, but the true key to its success is a peak in John Fogerty's creativity…

Creedence Gold is a collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit singles. Unfortunately, the album is a little too small to meet anybody's needs. A mere eight tracks are featured on Creedence Gold…

Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s which consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty; his brother rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty; bassist Stu Cook; and drummer Doug Clifford. These members had played together since 1959, first as The Blue Velvets and later as The Golliwogs. Their musical style encompassed roots rock, swamp rock, and blues rock. They played in a Southern rock style, despite their San Francisco Bay Area origin, with lyrics about bayous, catfish, the Mississippi River, and other popular elements of Southern United States iconography, as well as political and socially conscious lyrics about topics including the Vietnam War.

Creedence Gold is a collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit singles. Unfortunately, the album is a little too small to meet anybody's needs. A mere eight tracks are featured on Creedence Gold…

This tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of the greatest American singles bands of all time, features contemporary blues artists like Duke Robillard, Sonny Landreth, and Mike Zito covering CCR classics, including "Born on the Bayou," "Fortunate Son," "Bad Moon Rising," and others, and surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, it's more CCR than it is blues, a tribute, no doubt, to the strength of the songs themselves, which fare well here and breathe with fun reverence.

Released in the summer of 1968 – a year after the summer of love, but still in the thick of the Age of Aquarius - Creedence Clearwater Revival's self-titled debut album was gloriously out-of-step with the times, teeming with John Fogerty's Americana fascinations. While many of Fogerty's obsessions and CCR's signatures are in place – weird blues ("I Put a Spell on You"), Stax R&B (Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and a Half"), rockabilly ("Susie Q"), winding instrumental interplay, the swamp sound, and songs for "The Working Man" – the band was still finding their way.

Released in the summer of 1968 – a year after the summer of love, but still in the thick of the Age of Aquarius - Creedence Clearwater Revival's self-titled debut album was gloriously out-of-step with the times, teeming with John Fogerty's Americana fascinations. While many of Fogerty's obsessions and CCR's signatures are in place – weird blues ("I Put a Spell on You"), Stax R&B (Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and a Half"), rockabilly ("Susie Q"), winding instrumental interplay, the swamp sound, and songs for "The Working Man" – the band was still finding their way. Out of all their records (discounting Mardi Gras), this is the one that sounds the most like its era, thanks to the wordless vocal harmonies toward the end of "Susie Q," the backward guitars on "Gloomy," and the directionless, awkward jamming that concludes "Walking on the Water."

After knocking out an astonishing amount of work in just three years, CCR released their final album MARDI GRAS in 1971. In retrospect, it was probably time for them to disband. Interpersonal tensions had heightened, and all three members were pulling in different directions. These problems had taken their artistic toll on John Fogerty, whose songs no longer bore quite the same carefree, easy-as-falling-off-a-log feel as they had before…