For a relatively brief span of time in the late 1960's, Creedence Clearwater Revival could do no wrong. They released several great albums and an historic series of double-sided singles that recaptured the urgency and drive of rock 'n' roll at a time when the music was growing increasingly stuffy. John Fogerty (who wrote and sang the songs and played lead guitar) understood the mystical, organic qualities of rock, and the band played with a simplicity, joy, and discipline wholly atypical of the era. Fogerty wasn't a protest singer, but he wrote about the state of the nation ("Fortunate Son," "Who'll Stop The Rain") without sounding didactic or condescending. Nor was he a balladeer, yet his songs describing his life, loves, and travels ("Traveling Band," "Proud Mary") have the timelessness of folk standards. To rock fans alienated by the hippie movement, Creedence must have been a godsend.

Not that Creedence Clearwater Revival didn't look like hippies - they did - and they were embraced by the West Coast hippie culture almost as passionately as the group's musical antithesis, the Grateful Dead. The members of Creedence (including Fogerty's brother, Tom, plus Stu Cook and Doug Clifford) wore long hair and raggedy clothes and were capable of long, quasi-psychedelic jams. And, though their politics were more populist than revolutionary, they were sufficiently anti-establishment to earn them a place at the table. But while the Grateful Dead toyed with their music, noodling with melodies in a stoned stupor, Creedence Clearwater Revival embraced their's with clear-eyed passion. Creedence played with the aggressiveness of a garage band, driving their message home with economy and vigor.

No coincidence there, since Creedence essentially was a garage band - the Golliwogs - when they first formed in El Cerrito, California under Tom Fogerty's leadership. After signing to Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Records, the band even cutting a few singles under that name, but by the time they changed their name in 1967 and recorded their first album (Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968), John Fogerty was clearly in control. The issue of leadership, plus the group's frustration with the rock press (who often portrayed the band as lightweights), eventually tore Creedence apart. In retrospect, both positions were wrongheaded. John Fogerty was clearly a leader, a man with a vision of hitching disparate strains of American music - country, Cajun, folk, rhythm & blues - behind a streamlined locomotive of rock 'n' roll. As for the rock press, they preferred the dippy epistles of Donovan or the meaningless delirium of the Doors to CCR's plainspoken genius - which shows just how wrong they could be.

That said, Creedence Clearwater Revival was an underwhelming debut, the work of a (very good) garage band finding it's creative legs. The most memorable cuts were covers, as the band smokes through Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" and jams through nearly nine minutes of Dale Hawkins' "Susie Q." John Fogerty's best number (the creepy "Walking On The Water") pales next to his later work, but a single edit of "Susie Q" brushed the Top 10, priming the pump for the band's sophomore effort. Bayou Country (1969) showed vast improvement, both in the strength of Fogerty's writing and in the focus and ferocity the band brought to their performances.

Bayou Country spawned just one single, "Proud Mary," released in advance of the album in late 1968. But, that song became a major hit (holding the #2 position for three weeks) and an instant classic. One of rock's few true standards, "Proud Mary" spawned countless cover versions, including charted singles by Ike & Tina Turner, Solomon Burke, and the Checkmates. Even more more remarkable was the feat of Fogerty's songwriting - an uneducated, untraveled kid from Berkeley managed to piece together (from pop culture and pure imagination) a timeless tale of life on the Mississippi River. Incredibly, the rest of the album was almost as good - particularly "Born On The Bayou," an intense swamp rock workout; "Keep On Chooglin'," one of CCR's best extended jams; and "Good Golly Miss Molly," a scorched-earth deconstruction of Little Richard's horny classic.

And, the best was yet to come. Something had taken hold of John Fogerty, and his creativity and ambition soon went into overdrive. Counting Bayou Country and "Proud Mary," Creedence charted three albums and seven singles in 1969 alone - most of them Top 10 - and almost as many in 1970. For a brief period, America's best band was also America's most popular band, and it seemed John Fogerty could do no wrong. In some circles, his prolific success backfired, as many observers labeled Creedence a "singles band" - as if having too many good songs on an album were even possible! In the words of writer Ed Ward, Creedence sought to subvert the Top 40 from within, and that made them unhip to rock-is-art snobs.

Green River (1969) was the next release in this amazing flurry, and it showed Fogerty evolving even further as a songwriter, singer, and guitarist. Despite its ebullient, nostalgic title cut, Green River conveyed a greater sense of foreboding ("Bad Moon Rising," "Sinister Purpose") than previous Creedence albums. But there's also a growing awareness of the outside world, particularly in "Wrote A Song For Everyone." That awareness came to a boil on "Fortunate Son," a revelatory single from the next album, Willie & The Poor Boys (1969). Where most songs about the Vietnam War protested the fighting, the dying, or the reasons behind it, Fogerty protested who was fighting it - working class stiffs like him - or more to the point, who wasn't fighting it. "Fortunate Son" castigates war profiteers, tax dodgers, and the sons of rich men who use their position to avoid the wars their fathers have started. "It ain't me," Fogerty spits out, "I ain't no fortunate son."

Willie & The Poor Boys spawned just one single, the double-sided hit "Down On The Corner" b/w "Fortunate Son." But it was marvelously varied masterpiece, from the rockabilly tall-tale "It Came Out Of The Sky" to a series of top-notch covers (especially "The Midnight Special"). The album that followed, Cosmos Factory (1970), represents Creedence Clearwater Revival's high-water mark, a huge hit (#1 for nine weeks) packed with marvelous songs, searing messages, and monstrously tight rock 'n' roll. With "Run Through The Jungle" and "Who'll Stop The Rain," Fogerty composed perhaps the perfect protest songs - ones that could be (and were) interpreted as condemnations of America's war in Vietnam but that make perfect sense if you've never heard of the place. As an antidote, there was the escapism of "Up Around The Bend" ("leave the sinking ship behind") and the goofy psychedelia of "Looking Out My Back Door" ("a statue wearing high heels") and another passel of well-chosen covers.

With most critics stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the band, and with his bandmates squirming under his thumb, John Fogerty was not yet satisfied - this despite the fact that Creedence was selling more records than the Beatles. Fogerty attempted to prove himself by crafting an immaculate, serious album. His well-intentioned efforts yielded the puzzling Pendulum (1970), and it broke Creedence's winning streak. Not a bad record - after all, it included "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" and "Hey Tonight" - Pendulum would more accurately be described as not meeting Creedence's high standards. John Fogerty either lost confidence in his abilities (using horns and backup singers to graft soul onto a band already possessed of plenty) or was simply overreaching (as on the ludicrous "Rude Awakening #2"). Regardless, most of Pendulum lacked spontaneity - an essential reagent in CCR's chemistry.

After the relative failure of Pendulum, Tom Fogerty split and the band took a short hiatus. When they returned, John Fogerty relinquished total control, allowing remaining bandmates Stu Cook and Doug Clifford an equal creative voice on what proved to be Creedence Clearwater Revival's final album, Mardi Gras (1972). Much of the record has a country feel - foreshadowing the direction Fogerty took with his initial solo career - but more than anything, it doesn't sound like a Creedence album. Only Fogerty's songs leave much of an impression, especially the snarling "Sweet Hitch-Hiker" and the strangely prescient "Someday Never Comes," a song about disappointment and lost ideals.

Not without warrant, the critics savaged Mardi Gras, and the band broke up. John Fogerty initiated a solo career almost immediately, but he has recorded sporadically ever since. His solo debut, The Blue Ridge Rangers, was originally a pseudonymous release (Fogerty's name was added to the CD reissue), and it's a lively, one-man-band exercise in traditionalism. Eager for respite from rock stardom, Fogerty submerged himself in classic country music and actually scored a couple of hits, most notably a Top 20 cover of Hank William's "Jambalaya." Fogerty's eponymous 1975 follow-up (recorded for a new label, Asylum) is a more raucous affair that all but embraces the formula that made Creedence great. Like Creedence's classic albums, John Fogerty is packed with original rockers ("Almost Saturday Night," "Rockin' All Over The World"), philosophical ballads ("Where The River Flows") and some good-time oldies ("Sea Cruise," "Lonely Teardrops").

John Fogerty was warmly-received and sold respectably, and flush with that success a second record for Asylum (Hoodoo) was scheduled, then cancelled prior to release. Subsequently, John Fogerty disappeared for the better part of a decade. At least part of the time he was fighting Fantasy chief Saul Zaentz for control of Creedence's music - Fogerty lost, by the way - but one suspects he needed to replenish his creative juices. When Fogerty finally emerged from hibernation with Centerfield (1984), it was like he never left. The album zoomed to #1 on the strength of a Top 10 single, "Old Man Down The Road," that very nearly recaptured the swamp-pop glory of "Run Through The Jungle" - so much so that Zaentz sued Fogerty for plagiarizing his own song! Centerfield was a heartening (if inconsistent and mild-mannered) comeback, but the relative failure of Fogerty's next effort, the admittedly dismal Eye Of The Zombie (1986), drove him back into seclusion. Over ten years later, he bowed the widely-praised Blue Moon Swamp (1997) and the live Premonition (1998), wherein he reclaimed the songs of his celebrated youth.

Collecting the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival has never been easier or more rewarding, thanks to a long-overdue reissue campaign from Fantasy Records. First and foremost, we've been blessed with Creedence Clearwater Revival (2001), a 6-CD boxed set compiling every single official Creedence studio recording plus a wealth of live and rare recordings - including the Golliwogs material. This beautifully-packaged, thoughtfully-compiled "instant collection" is highly recommended for fans or students of 60's music or roots rock - absolutely essential. Pickier buyers should also know that each of the Creedence's seven studio albums have been individually remastered and repackaged, including liner notes by writers like Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, and Ed Ward. (The earlier masters are still available - and cheaper - but I can't recommend the remastered versions too highly.)

Creedence Clearwater Revival's Chronicles: The 20 Greatest Hits (1976) was originally a two-LP set, though Fantasy reissued it on a single CD in 1983. Chronicles became one of the most popular CD's ever released and, in many ways, is also one of the best. Chronicles presents the very best songs by one of the very best American bands of the 1960's - hard to argue with that! But, unlike the rest of Creedence's catalog, Chronicles has never been remastered. Further, Chronicles Vol. 2, issued in 1986 to capitalize on the original's popularity, makes an imperfect companion. Mainly, all of the hits were loaded onto the first Chronicles - though with songs like "Born On The Bayou," Chronicles Vol. 2 is no slouch. But, a number of single edits were used on the Chronicles series, and "Susie Q" is split across the two volumes. Ideally, these two wonderful CD's should be reissued as a set - resequenced in chronological order employing full-length versions.

But, I'm nitpicking. The point, of course, is the music, and Creedence created one of the most impressive catalogs in the annals of rock - most of it in barely two years. The things that made Creedence so great were twofold. First, John Fogerty stuck to the basics: simple, catchy songs played by a minimum of instruments - usually just two guitars, bass, and drums. Second, Fogerty understood that it was more important that his audience feel his music than admire or understand it. The moment he lost faith in that formula, he lost his muse. But before that happened, Fogerty and his band provided irrefutable proof that rock 'n' roll - the music of now, the music of the future - was grounded in the music of America's past - minstrel songs, country ballads, gospel shouts, and blues hollers. To Creedence Clearwater Revival, playing rock 'n' roll was a road to salvation, vindication, and transformation. But, above all, it was still a helluva way to spend a Saturday night.