Two thirds of all who served were volunteers - a far higher proportion of volunteers than from the supposedly purer more patriotic "Greatest Generation" of WW Two myth, the majority of whom were drafted with a great deal of resentment. So it is not surprising to see such ignorant prejudice coloring an analysis of Creedence Clearwater Revival that the reviewer here at The Dispatch wisely and thankfully exposed.ĭespite all that Hollywood and the music scene has mis-portrayed over the decades, most of the guys (and a few gals) who served in Vietnam and in the military during the Vietnam War era were not drug crazed baby killers, drafted and serving only at gunpoint. fascists being representative of America in this age. the peace loving long hairs was just as wrong then, as a representative slice of America, as is today's preferred leftwingnut lies about innocent peace loving Black Lives Matter protesters vs. the angelic lovey dovey hippies of Haight Ashbury, and the reactionary rednecks vs. The stereotyped drug crazed baby killers vs. The gross and entirely wrong popular, Hollywood summaries of the 60s and the Vietnam War were mostly written by the leftwingnuts, not real people. Together they help recapture the magic of the biggest rock group ever to vanish into thin air. That’s why the simultaneous release of John Lingan’s book A Song for Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Netflix’s rockumentary Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at Albert Hall are so welcome. As a consequence, almost nothing remains of them except the music. John Fogerty refused even to be in the same studio with his former collaborators-a feud that continues to this day.Ĭreedence did virtually no merchandizing, and its amateurish marketing was overseen almost entirely by John. A year later, their final album earned a damning review from Rolling Stone’s Jon Landau, who called it “the worst album I have ever heard from a major rock band.” Six months after that, CCR was kaput. Tom quit in 1971, and simmering anger between the remaining members made collaboration impossible. Their records outsold the Beatles, who broke up just four days before Creedence took the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 14, 1970, as part of their first European tour. But they hit gold a decade later with songs such as “ Suzie Q,” “ Proud Mary” and “ Green River,” and were soon performing before immense crowds at mega-concerts, including Woodstock. The four boys from California’s Bay Area-lead singer John Fogerty, his brother Tom on rhythm guitar, and their junior high school classmates Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford on bass and drums, respectively-had played together since 1958. In fact, there was a brief moment when it looked like Creedence might eclipse the Beatles. Written in “an American tradition,” their songs seemed to be written for “waylaid Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns.” He recalled how, when starting out himself, he would often play their hits in a local bar, and watch the songs establish a brief and beautiful camaraderie among the diverse patrons: “rough kids just out of high school, who hadn’t been snatched up by the draft yet truck drivers heading home south through the Jersey pines … and a mixture of college and working girls, women with bouffant hairdos, and a small but steady hippie contingent.” They all loved CCR. Their music was “severe precise lyrically spare and beautiful,” he said. In his speech inducting Creedence Clearwater Revival into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen got to the heart of what makes the band so special.
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