CCR 50th anniversary

[Rocker]

Creedence Clearwater Revival share unseen ‘Proud Mary’ performance
Exclusive: Watch the unearthed performance from the rock icons on Rolling Stone UK


https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/music/news/creedence-clearwater-revival-share-unseen-proud-mary-performance-22207/

[Rocker]

Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall (Official Film Trailer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSgjNffYBdo


The new documentary concert film, 'Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall,' will be available for streaming on Netflix beginning September 16 (in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, NZ, Latin America and Africa).

The film is also coming to UK cinemas for a special one-night event with Everyman Cinemas on Monday, September 12th. Get your tickets here: https://found.ee/ccr-rah-everyman 

The film coincides with the release of the live album 'Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall,' also releasing September 16th, on 180-gram vinyl, CD, cassette and digital formats (including ATMOS® immersive and hi-res audio). A Super Deluxe Edition box set, which includes a Blu-ray featuring the film, will follow on November 18th (detailed below). Order the album here: https://found.ee/ccr-rah-album

When CCR took the stage for two nights in April of 1970, the band members had reached the height of their international stardom and arrived ready to prove themselves as equals to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles, who had announced their breakup just days before. Their performance—which included hits like “Born On The Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” "Fortunate Son," and “Bad Moon Rising”—was met with a 15-minute standing ovation and rave next-day reviews in the UK’s top publications.

More than 50 years after that legendary show, the original multitrack tapes have been meticulously restored and mixed by GRAMMY®-winning producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The 180g LP was mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using half-speed technology for the highest-quality listening experience.

The film is directed by two-time GRAMMY® Award-winner Bob Smeaton (The Beatles Anthology and Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsies) and narrated by Academy Award®-winning actor Jeff Bridges, the film takes viewers from the band’s earliest years together in El Cerrito, CA through their meteoric rise to fame. Featuring a wealth of unseen footage, Travelin’ Band culminates with the band’s show at the Royal Albert Hall—marking the only concert footage of the original CCR lineup to be released in its entirety.

Exclusive to CraftRecordings.com, a Super Deluxe Edition of the album includes the complete live set on two 180-gram LPs, mastered at 45-RPM, as well as on CD. A second CD features music from the film, including formative recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations (Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs), while the Blu-ray offers the complete 'Travelin’ Band' film, plus the digital album in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS® immersive audio. Limited to 5,000 copies worldwide, each individually numbered set is housed in a 12” x 12” box, with embossed gold foil detail, and includes a reproduction of the original 1970 tour program, a 17” x 24” poster, and a 16-page booklet, featuring an excerpt from Bridges’ voice-over script, which offers background on the band’s incredible path to the London show. Order here: https://found.ee/ccr-rah-deluxe

Listen to more Creedence Clearwater Revival: https://found.ee/ccr-discover
Shop the Craft Recordings store for CCR #vinyl, box sets and more: https://found.ee/ccr-craftstore
Subscribe to the CCR YouTube channel: https://found.ee/CCRYouTube
 
Explore more from Creedence Clearwater Revival
Official Music Videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt...
Chronicle - The 20 Greatest Hits: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt...
Best of CCR playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
Road Trip playlist: https://found.ee/ccr-roadtrip
 
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[Rocker]

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Spellbinding Royal Albert Hall Concert Finally Sees the Light of Day: Album Review


https://variety.com/2022/music/album-reviews/creedence-clearwater-revival-royal-albert-hall-concert-album-review-1235375083/  





Out Now: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Previously ‘Lost’ Royal Albert Hall Live Album; Film Streaming on Netflix

https://rockcellarmagazine.com/creedence-clearwater-revival-royal-albert-hall-live-album-film-netflix-listen-watch/




Doug “Cosmo” Clifford on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Lost’ Royal Albert Hall Concert Film/LP

https://rockcellarmagazine.com/creedence-clearwater-revival-interview-doug-clifford-royal-albert-hall-film/#main

[Rocker]

John Fogerty Reveals How Creedence Clearwater Revival Got Its Bayou Sound
The NorCal musician opens up about the legacy of his band Creedence Clearwater Revival, their landmark show at the Royal Albert Hall, and their “supernatural” concert mode.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-fogerty-reveals-how-creedence-clearwater-revival-got-its-bayou-sound?ref=scroll

[Lonely Summer]

Thanks for the links, Rocker, looking foward to seeing the film if and when it comes out on DVD.

[guitarfool2002]

This is very cool! Probably repeating myself, but the footage of CCR at Woodstock has been one of my go-to YouTube videos for well over a year now, I can't get over how good they were and how and why Fogerty didn't want that to be released because he thought the performance was off. Fogerty himself had one of the absolute guitar highlights of the entire festival with his solo on "I Put A Spell On You"...an absolute jaw-dropper of a solo on his Rickenbacker. And the band was so tight. I'm excited to hear a full show live like this!

Just for CCR fans, I heard this over the summer and the first thing I thought of was how they nailed the CCR groove on this track, especially that Cosmo drum beat and sound. Marcus King, "Blood On The Tracks":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Q74anxPm4

It was great to hear a current artist paying tribute to CCR like this.

[Rocker]

This is very cool! Probably repeating myself, but the footage of CCR at Woodstock has been one of my go-to YouTube videos for well over a year now, I can't get over how good they were and how and why Fogerty didn't want that to be released because he thought the performance was off.

Makes you wonder how they sounded when Fogerty was satisfied.
Have you heard the "Live at Woodstock"-CD from a couple of years back? I don't have the DVD but the sound on the CD is incredible. I won't even try to describe it because it would make me sound like an idiot.

[Rocker]

Creedence Clearwater Revival At Royal Albert Hall: No Encores, But Worth The 52-Year Wait
Five decades on, a long-lost documentary and live album from CCR's 1970 Euro tour have been released. Drummer Doug Clifford and director Bob Smeaton discuss the releases, playing the Beatles' house, and a lifetime of chooglin'.


https://www.grammy.com/news/creedence-clearwater-revival-live-at-royal-albert-hall-live-album-documentary-doug-clifford-bob-smeaton





The Most American Band

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-most-american-band/




CCR’s John Fogerty Talks New ‘Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall’ Album and Documentary
Time changes things. There were years there when John Fogerty, legendary frontman for the rock and roll band Creedence Clearwater Revival, harbored frustration toward some of the musical entities he was connected to closely, whether that was former band members, family, or record executives. But now that’s largely, if not entirely, all gone. Fogerty’s changed feelings can be summed up in a neat package when considering CCR’s newest release, a two-pronged album and documentary film featuring the music from the band’s now infamous performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

https://americansongwriter.com/ccrs-john-fogerty-talks-new-creedence-clearwater-revival-at-the-royal-albert-hall-album-and-documentary/

[Rocker]

This footag has been around a while but this is more complete than what I've seen before. And in better qualiy.


Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) • “Hey Tonight”/Interview/“Keep On Chooglin’” • LIVE 1971 [RITY]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNm24nYZyiY

[Rocker]

Always nice to see some vintage CCR



CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL arrival in Belgium


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtKF7NoN5KY

[Lonely Summer]

Whatever happened with that CCR documentary that came out a couple years ago? I kept expecting I would see it in the DVD section of my music store.

[Bedroom Tapes]

You mean the excellent Netflix one? 

https://youtu.be/aSgjNffYBdo?si=Wy5pKuk5k_8rtqnj

[Lonely Summer]

You mean the excellent Netflix one? 

https://youtu.be/aSgjNffYBdo?si=Wy5pKuk5k_8rtqnj

no dvd version?

[Bedroom Tapes]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Lonely Summer]

Not that I'm aware of.

Sh!#. F$$$. I'm just too dang old. Still hung up on physical media.

[Rocker]

The Biggest Band in America in 2024 Is … Creedence Clearwater Revival
CCR are huger than ever right now, without anyone really noticing. What we choogle about when we choogle about Creedence

August 1969 was a very Creedence month. But so were most months back then. Creedence Clearwater Revival, the most popular band in America, were riding the hot streak of all hot streaks, cranking out swamp-rock classics at a crazy pace. John Fogerty and his Northern California crew released their masterpiece Green River in the first week of August, a few months after their masterpiece Bayou Country and a couple of months before their October masterpiece Willy and the Poor Boys. Their Top 40 hits that year: “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Fortunate Son,” “Down on the Corner,” and the ultimate summer guitar choogle, “Green River.” CCR banged out five of the all-time greatest rock & roll albums in under two years: Bayou, Green River, Willy in 1969, Cosmo’s Factory and Pendulum in 1970.

So it totally makes sense that Creedence were America’s biggest band in the summer of ’69. The weird part is that Creedence are also America’s biggest band in the summer of ’24.

CCR are the most awesomely bizarre case of a classic band that’s bigger than ever right now, without anyone really noticing. But their greatest-hits collection Chronicle is riding high on the Billboard 200 every week, always somewhere in the thirties or forties. It’s currently Number 39, right ahead of the new Ariana Grande album. It’s higher than anything by the Beatles or the Stones or Zeppelin or Queen. It’s crazy because there’s no star power involved, no cult of personality, no Freddie Mercury, no Stevie/Lindsey, no backstory or drama or charisma, no biopic or TV placement, and God knows no sex appeal. Just four anonymous flannel dudes and a bunch of perfect guitar songs about rivers.

Of all the “classic rockers who stay famous forever” stories, this is the one where there’s nothing but the songs. Of all the fans who bought/streamed/whatevered Chronicle this week, I doubt half could give the leader’s name, or tell you a thing about him. But only a hardcore fan could name the other three. Anyone who can tell Stu Cook from Doug Clifford probably is Stu Cook or Doug Clifford. You couldn’t pick any of these dudes out of a police lineup. There’s no hero worship, no narrative, no stars. There’s no love story, no death story. Only the songs.

A couple of years ago, when Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” blew up into a surprise Top Five pop smash, that’s when I really started noticing the astoundingly unastounding popularity of CCR. While the world was celebrating Kate’s triumph, it was funny to see Chronicle hanging around the Top 50 of the album chart, quietly topping the era’s biggest pop icons. But you couldn’t call it a renaissance, since (1) these songs never vanished, and (2) nothing was driving this. No meme or TikTok dance. No soundtrack moment. No band has ever needed a revival less.

There just aren’t any comparable examples. Bruce Springsteen doesn’t have any records this big. Neither do Pink Floyd or Van Halen or the Beach Boys or the Eagles. Any other music franchise this popular has some larger-than-life personality or drama in the brand. To pick the most obvious example, everybody who loves Fleetwood Mac — which means everybody — knows the real-life heartbreak behind the music. You could run down every Rumours track and tell me who’s breaking up with who on which drugs. But Chronicle is just as massive, without any sex or tragedy. (Rumours always goes neck and neck with CCR on the charts; last week Chronicle beat Rumours, this week the Mac slipped ahead.) Nobody will ever base a movie, novel, or Broadway show on the making of Green River. (Ugh, can you imagine a duller rock flick than Choogle Hard with a Vengeance: The Creedence Story?)

If you love those old-school rock legends, you undoubtedly relate to their personal struggles: John vs. Paul, Mick vs. Keith, Waters vs. Gilmour, Eddie vs. Dave, Steely Dan vs. the Cuervo Gold and fine Colombian. Don’t you dare look me in the eye and claim you don’t pick sides between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. But that doesn’t happen with CCR. If you were forced to come up with a juicy Behind the Music anecdote, you’d have to say, “Well, they overinvested in an offshore tax shelter in the Bahamas, which turned out to be a fraud, so they lost the publishing rights to … wait, come back!” You want a fashion statement? Flannel. You want glamour, gossip, danger? More flannel.

And it’s not even like there’s one big tentpole hit to sell the others — “Proud Mary” is probably their most famous song, but it’s not much bigger than the sixth or seventh biggest. They had five Number Two hits but never hit Number One; I don’t know if that’s a record, but it’s a perfect anti-dramatic flex for Creedence, comparable to Al Kaline retiring with 399 homers. They’ve graced a million soundtracks (who can forget the Dude in The Big Lebowski, drumming on the roof of his car?) but nothing ever became “The Song From That Movie” because they’re more famous than any flick they’ve been in.

There’s only one explanation for CCR’s phenomenal popularity: People just keep falling in love with these songs, without caring about demographic niches or generational clichés or fashion trends. It’s the kind of popularity that officially isn’t supposed to exist.

But all Creedence ever needed, then or now, was these tunes. They’ve got Koufax numbers — 65 tunes in their songbook, at least 40 of them undeniably great. They took pride in being an ace singles band, yet their albums are full of insanely brilliant deep cuts only freaks know. “Ramble Tamble,” the greatest of all Creedence songs, is a seven-minute doom-choogle that builds from pastoral bliss to apocalyptic rage, but I’ve never heard it on the radio even once. You could eliminate all 20 Chronicle hits from their catalog and you’d still have the best non-Beatles/Stones band of their era.

But why would you want to do that? It’s America’s favorite greatest-hits album because it’s also the best, with CCR’s angriest (“Fortunate Son”), scariest (“Born on the Bayou”), sluttiest (“Sweet Hitch-Hiker”), screamiest (“Travelin’ Band”), dreamiest (“Long As I Can See the Light”), hippiest (“Up Around the Bend”), meanest (“Run Through the Jungle”), countriest (“Green River”), and funniest (“Lookin’ Out My Back Door”), with the finest three seconds of Fogerty’s vocal life, that “yeeeeah” into the final chorus of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.” But my favorite isn’t even a Fogerty tune — “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is their bash at a Marvin Gaye classic, not even getting the words right, just a headbang guitar jam riding Doug Clifford’s cowbell clunks, their most libidinal sex groove, building for a comically absurd 11 minutes. No song sounds better in the car in the summer sun with the windows down. Except maybe the other songs on Chronicle.

The Creedence guitars are full of NoCal hippie sunshine, with the band merrily jamming away, except they never sounded like other hippies because they had a drummer who didn’t suck. Cook and Clifford were a monster rhythm section, the U.S. answer to Wyman and Watts. Green River is my sentimental fave, even if I concede that Cosmo’s Factory is better. “Sinister Purpose” is an evil blues slither where Fogerty growls, “Burn away the goodness/You and I remain.” (Pavement used to rip up that one live, one of the countless indie bands that worshipped CCR.) “Tombstone Shadow” has the spookiest one-note guitar solo this side of “Cinnamon Girl.” He ends with the lament “Wrote a Song for Everyone” (“when I couldn’t even talk to you”), but it’s no boast, because he’s selling himself short: He wrote a few dozen songs for everyone.

But Fogerty never had any interest in the starmaking machinery. Nobody ever wondered who he was making out with, if only because he never bothered to sing about making out. “Born on the Bayou” has that out-of-nowhere line about “rollin’ with some Cajun queen,” but she’s only there because he’s trying to make conversation with his hound dog. (Maybe he meant Skee-Ball?) He was a kid from the Bay Area suburbs, writing American myths out of his rock & roll fantasies. He’d never set foot on a bayou in his life. He made up regional accents nobody spoke. (“Big wheel keep on toinin’,” “I hoid it through the grapevine” — who’s his dialect coach, Curly Howard?) He avoided the whole cult-of-personality thing. In Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary,” she turns it into a pageant of American history, the clash between past and present, rural and urban, misogyny and racism and class rage, summing up the nation’s cultural memory. When Fogerty sings it, it’s a dude who likes boats.

But ironically, there’s plenty of dramatic lore in the Creedence story, if anyone knew or cared. There’s two brothers hating each other — after big brother Tom Fogerty quit the band, they never reconciled before his death. John was one of the very few rock stars to get drafted in the Vietnam era — he did his time in the Army, waiting out a year of misery, then returned to fight his way back into the Bay Area bar-band scene. None of his peers had a struggle like that to boast about, but it was a cred card he refused to play, even when he was protesting the war in “Fortunate Son.” There’s even the hilarious lawsuit after his 1985 solo hit “The Old Man Down the Road” — it sounded so much like Creedence, his ex-label took him to court, making him the only rock star ever to get sued for plagiarizing himself. He had to take the witness stand with a guitar, to show the jury why his songs sounded like John Fogerty. During cross-examination, he snapped, “What am I supposed to do, get an inoculation?”

Great stories — but only hardcore fans know them, because Fogerty had zero knack for talking about himself. Since the band broke up, he’s never stopped railing at his ex-bandmates, stewing over business injustices he never had much luck convincing anyone else to care about. His 2015 memoir is a barely-readable pity party. Even in their heyday, the group’s interviews were nothing but drab complaints about not getting taken seriously enough. As Cook groused to Rolling Stone, “People know about our music but they don’t know about our heads.”

That hasn’t changed — but it’s never gotten in the way of the music. If there’s one hit that sums up Fogerty’s populist genius, it’s “Travelin’ Band” — Huey “Piano” Smith played at Ramones velocity, connecting the Crescent City with CBGB. (I saw Bon Jovi play it on the New Jersey tour, with Sebastian Bach wailing along; Lainey Wilson just did a great country version this spring.) “Fortunate Son” and “Don’t Look Now” are two of rock’s fiercest political rants, paired together on Willy in under five minutes, talking class privilege in prescient ways. He was the first singer to flip off Reagan (“Ronnie the Popular”), raging about “actors in the White House,” seeing the future of American fascism more clearly than self-righteous hippie types did. “It’s Just a Thought” is one of rock’s most bittersweet hippie-dad meditations on growing up, at the ripe old age of 25. Even the much-maligned “Sailor’s Lament” is righteous Dead fan-fic: Uncle John Fogerty’s Band, the workingman’s Workingmans Dead. (As my editor Jon Dolan brilliantly calls it, “proto-yacht.”)

CCR were always the band that everybody likes. Their populism spoke to punk rebels from Sleater-Kinney (“Fortunate Son”) to the Clash (play “London Calling” next to “Walk on the Water”) to the Minutemen — it took nerves of blue-collar steel to aim “Don’t Look Now” at the Reaganist charade of 1984. Mike Watt decorated an early Firehose record with an autograph from his hero: “To Mike. Keep on keepin’ on.” You can make a great playlist of CCR knockoffs: The Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress),” Lou Reed’s “September Song,” Nick Lowe’s “Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine.” But the best: Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes,” a Nineties B-side choogle nobody noticed for 20 years, until the world suddenly realized it was a lost classic.

All these years later, it’s still a shock that Creedence packed so many legendary songs into two madcap years. But it’s an even bigger shock how these songs hold up now. Chronicle has never peaked higher than Number 18, yet it’s still a blockbuster every week. No other act has been so popular for so long, based on absolutely nothing but the music. Like their most famous fictional fan, the Dude, these songs abide. Creedence will be massive in September 2024, just as they were massive in September 1969. These songs will keep rolling, as long as those big wheels keep on turning.




Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/creedence-clearwater-revival-ccr-chronicle-americas-biggest-band-1235073385/

[Lonely Summer]

I'm a huge CCR fan, but I have never owned a copy of Chronicle. I did buy Creedence Gold and More Creedence Gold years ago because they were cheap, but I have all the original studio albums, plus the two live albums released back in the day.

[Rocker]

I'm a huge CCR fan, but I have never owned a copy of Chronicle. I did buy Creedence Gold and More Creedence Gold years ago because they were cheap, but I have all the original studio albums, plus the two live albums released back in the day.

I don't think you're missing anything. Although Chronicle features the edited "Grapevine", I'm not sure if it is on the Gold compilations.

My father owned Chronicle on LP and I still have that copy. It was my introduction to everything CCR and I remember how amazing that picture of Fogerty on the front looked to me.

[Lonely Summer]

I'm a huge CCR fan, but I have never owned a copy of Chronicle. I did buy Creedence Gold and More Creedence Gold years ago because they were cheap, but I have all the original studio albums, plus the two live albums released back in the day.

I don't think you're missing anything. Although Chronicle features the edited "Grapevine", I'm not sure if it is on the Gold compilations.

My father owned Chronicle on LP and I still have that copy. It was my introduction to everything CCR and I remember how amazing that picture of Fogerty on the front looked to me.

I do have a Collectables single of Grapevine, on orange vinyl. That recording always takes me back to when I was a drummer. I would put the album version on, and play along.

[Rocker]

I'm a huge CCR fan, but I have never owned a copy of Chronicle. I did buy Creedence Gold and More Creedence Gold years ago because they were cheap, but I have all the original studio albums, plus the two live albums released back in the day.

I don't think you're missing anything. Although Chronicle features the edited "Grapevine", I'm not sure if it is on the Gold compilations.

My father owned Chronicle on LP and I still have that copy. It was my introduction to everything CCR and I remember how amazing that picture of Fogerty on the front looked to me.

I do have a Collectables single of Grapevine, on orange vinyl. That recording always takes me back to when I was a drummer. I would put the album version on, and play along.

There is something special about CCR's "Grapevine". I mean the song itself is so great and I don't know if it's even possible to do a bad version of it but what CCR makes out of it is so totally different. It sounds like it's their song. Really cool. And I'm sure it's fun to drum along to it.

[Lonely Summer]

I'm a huge CCR fan, but I have never owned a copy of Chronicle. I did buy Creedence Gold and More Creedence Gold years ago because they were cheap, but I have all the original studio albums, plus the two live albums released back in the day.

I don't think you're missing anything. Although Chronicle features the edited "Grapevine", I'm not sure if it is on the Gold compilations.

My father owned Chronicle on LP and I still have that copy. It was my introduction to everything CCR and I remember how amazing that picture of Fogerty on the front looked to me.

I do have a Collectables single of Grapevine, on orange vinyl. That recording always takes me back to when I was a drummer. I would put the album version on, and play along.

There is something special about CCR's "Grapevine". I mean the song itself is so great and I don't know if it's even possible to do a bad version of it but what CCR makes out of it is so totally different. It sounds like it's their song. Really cool. And I'm sure it's fun to drum along to it.

Yeah, it's a great one. Paul Revere and the Raiders did a version in the 80's that feels to me like a mashup of CCR's and Marvin's.