Notes On The Book -- CCR

Creedence Clearwater Revival -- specifically, John Fogerty -- Vietnam, music, and the music that connected most with those going to Vietnam. Really, really amazing. 

"Fortunate Son" -- perhaps the most iconic.
"I Put A Spell On You" -- best cover?

1969: the best year ever for music. 

From November 1, 2013:

Regular readers know that I feel strongly that the best music of the modern era was from 1969, from the six months preceding, to the six months following that year.

A Song For Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Lingan, c. 2022. 

About John Lingan. 

I can't say for sure, but I think the author's sources were:

• in the public domain;
• extensive interviews with two of the band's members, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford
  
• no interviews with John Fogerty (based what I read in the book, I don't think John Fogerty would give interviews to an author), nor his brother.

I can't recommend this book for those looking to great literature. By page 196, at the end of Chapter 22, I was ready to not only quit reading this book but actually throwing it away. I "knew" what I wanted to know about Creedence Clearwater Revival. The writing had become boring, repetitive.

But then, page 197, really, really good. Vietnam tied everything together. Just as the "rug really tied the room together" in The Big Lebowski. And, oh, by the way, the author throws in The Big Lebowski into this book.

The book explains so much.

Probably the biggest epiphany, insight: why San Fransisco is the way it is today; why it was the way it was in the 60s.

From the book:

Chapter One: Classmates

• 1958.
• Doug Clifford (drums), Stu Cook (bassist), thirteen years old, seventh grade, Portola Junior High, El Cerrito, northeast region of San Francisco Bay.
• KWBR, AM 1310, R&B, Black music.
• Berkeley Hills: highlanders vs the flatlanders
• Doug lived in between
• Stu: Nut Tree in Vacaville, or the Milk Farm in Davis
• I lived in Vacaville for awhile; ate / shopped at the Nut Tree
  

Chapter Two: The Combo

• John Fogerty, a flatlander all his life
• divorced parents; five brothers; he was the middle one; lived with their mother; dirt poor
• John: Portola Junior High, 1958, also, eighth grade 
• older brother Tom (rhythm guitar), graduating from high school
  

Chapter Three: A Grown Man

• Tom joins the combo of three
• known as the Blue Velvets before Tom joined
  

Chapter Four: Blue and Green

• the band graduated high school, 1963
• Stu and Doug prepared to enroll at San Jose State

Chapter Five: Fantasies

• Blue Velvets graduated high school, 1963
• television: US soldiers seen in Vietnam
• JFK assassination
• Ed Sullivan, Sunday, February 9, 1964: the Beatles
• Blue Velvets changed their stage presence: faced the audience
• renamed themselves th Visions
  
• Bob Rafelson

Chapter Six: Freedom Summer

• April, 1964: Ford Mustang introduced
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee began plotting Mississippi Freedom Summer 
• producer/manager named them the "Golliwogs"

Chapter Seven: Humiliation

• end of 1964, the Golliwogs
  

Chapter Eight: A Man of Nature

•  Stu's mother Dolores died of cancer, 1965
• Rafelson project, The Monkees

Chapter Nine: Niitty-Gritty

• war accelerates in Vietnam
• the San Francisco scene well described
• Velvet Underground

Chapter Ten: The Valley of the Black Pig

• Reagan announces he will run for governor, summer of 1966
• at Santa Cruz: Doug and Stu, enamored of Lord of the Rings
• The Monkees still huge and getting bigger
• US presence in Vietnam hitting a peak
• John and Doug: basic training
  

Chapter Eleven: Full-Time

• Tom, married with two kids; 1966
• Golliwogs and "Porterville"
• new contract for John; lots of songs required
  

Chapter Twelve: Revival

• 1967: Golliwogs missed the Monterey International Pop Music Festival 
• name change, evolving: Creedence Clearwater Revival
  

Chapter Thirteen: Strike Time

• 1968: Redwood National Park established
• "Susie Q" cover

Chapter Fourteen: An Incipient Fad

Chapter Fifteen: Grief

• 1968: Robert Kennedy assassinated
• Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Moby Grape
• "Born on the Bayou"
• Doug got married

Chapter Sixteen: A Crime To Be Young

• 1968: Stu -- only unmarried member of the band
• Beatles by now had established a pattern of double A-side singles, so that became John's standard 
• preparing for New York debut scheduled for October
  

Chapter Seventeen: Disharmony

• 1969
• "Proud Mary"
• John Fogerty goes it alone on the LPs (p. 145)
  

Chapter Eighteen: Rolling

• 1969 begins
• 1,800 B-52's a month into Vietnam

Chapter Nineteen: Rising

• Lou Reed, Velvet Underground
• "Bad Moon Rising"

Chapter Twenty: Smoldering

• CCR had no respect

Chapter Twenty-one: At The Feet of The Gods

• "Bad Moon Rising"
• Easy Rider
• June 22, 1969: Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire

Chapter Twenty-two: Songs For Everyone

• Newport '69

Chapter Twenty-three: The Acceptance of Death

• Vietnam, music, and CCR
• this might be the best chapter in the book
• brings everything together

Chapter Twenty-four: Together and Apart

• "Fortunate Son"

Chapter Twenty-five: An Army Growing in Your Guts

• October, 1969
• Chicago, the Weatherman

Chapter Twenty-six: We Shouldn't Be Taken Lightly

• January, 1970

Chapter Twenty-seven: Forward to the Past

• April, 1970
• "Up Around the Bend"
• European tour
  

Chapter Twenty-eight: Bloodbath

• April, 1970
• Ohio Kent State
• Augusta, Georgia
• 'Lookin' Out My Back Door"
• many songs

Chapter Twenty-nine: Good Business

• "Cosmos's Factory"
• three deaths in just over a month
• Alan Wilson of Canned Heat, September 3
• Jimi Hendrix, September 18
• Janis Joplin, October 4

Chapter Thirty: The Oldest Young Man

• chapter ends, February, 1971

Chapter Thirty-one: Blue Again

• Tom leaves the band

Chapter Thirty-two: The Shit Kicker Three

• May 19, 1970; Creedence TV special aired in syndication
• on tour again
• by the end of 1971, Creedence had sold a total of $100 million
• the year began with John Lennon telling Rolling Stone, he liked CCR
• the year ended with Waylon Jennings praising CCR

Chapter Thirty-three: Savaged

• they toured more as a trio than a quartet
• the band dissolves when John tells Stu he doesn't want to do this any more

Chapter Thirty-four: The Music in Our Heads

• the contract was still in effect
• the four still had to make music
• October, 1972: the press said the band had broken up but was amicable
• inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, their first year of eligibility
• p. 305: The Big Lebowski
• July, 2021: "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" -- took the number one spot on the Billboard Rock Digital Sales chart, fifty years after its release
• "with one member fallen, two retired, and the last still going under his own name, a brotherhood built and broken, it was the band's first number one single"