Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival, commonly abbreviated as CCR or simply Creedence, was an American rock band formed in El Cerrito, California, in 1959. The band consisted of the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty; his brother, the rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty; the bassist Stu Cook; and the drummer Doug Clifford. These members had played together since 1959, first as the Blue Velvets and later as the Golliwogs, before settling on Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1967. The band's most prolific and successful period, between 1969 and 1971, produced 14 consecutive top-10 singles and five consecutive top-10 albums in the United States, two of which—Green River and Cosmo's Factory —topped the Billboard 200 chart. The band performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival in upstate New York and was the first major act signed to appear there.
CCR disbanded acrimoniously in late 1972 after four years of chart-topping success. Tom had quit the band the previous year and John was at odds with the remaining members over matters of business and artistic control, all of which resulted in lawsuits among the former bandmates. John's disagreements with Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz led to more court cases and John refused to perform with the two other surviving members of the band—Tom had died in 1990—at Creedence's 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Though the band has never publicly reunited, John continues to perform CCR songs as part of his solo act, while Cook and Clifford performed as Creedence Clearwater Revisited from 1995 to 2020.
CCR's music remains popular and is a staple of U.S. classic rock radio airplay. The compilation album Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits, originally released in 1976, is still on the Billboard 200 and reached the 750-week mark in June 2025. It has been certified 12-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for at least 12 million copies sold in the U.S.
History
Early career: The Blue Velvets (1959–1964)
, Doug Clifford, and Stu Cook met at Portola Junior High School in El Cerrito, California. Calling themselves the Blue Velvets, the trio played instrumentals and "jukebox standards", and backed John's older brother Tom at recordings and performances before he joined the band. The band had also released three singles, the second of which was picked up by Casey Kasem, who worked at KEWB, Oakland. In 1964 they signed with Fantasy Records, an independent jazz label in San Francisco. The band was attracted to the label after hearing Vince Guaraldi's instrumental "Cast Your Fate to the Wind", which the label had released to national success.Vision and the Golliwogs (1964–1967)
For the band's first release, Fantasy co-owner Max Weiss renamed the group the Golliwogs. Prior to the Golliwog name, Weiss had renamed them Vision. The band members' roles changed during this period; Cook switched from piano to bass guitar and Tom Fogerty from lead vocals to rhythm guitar; John became the band's lead vocalist and primary songwriter. In Tom's words: "I could sing, but John had a sound!" For their work with this band, Tom took on the name "Rann Wild" and John became "Toby Green". Both sides of each of the group's first six singles were credited to the writing team of Wild/Green.In 1966, John Fogerty and Doug Clifford were drafted into the U.S. armed forces; Fogerty joined the U.S. Army Reserve, while Clifford joined the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Speaking of his experience in the US Army, Fogerty has said: "I would become delirious and go into a trance. And I started narrating this story to myself, which was the song 'Porterville'." John Fogerty eventually took control of the group by singing lead vocals and blossoming into a multi-instrumentalist who played keyboards, harmonica, and saxophone in addition to lead guitar. By 1967, he was producing the group's recordings, although without credit. The group's final single, "Porterville", failed to chart, but the exact same recording was shortly thereafter issued as a track by Creedence Clearwater Revival on that group's first album.
Name change to Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968–1969)
In 1967 Saul Zaentz bought Fantasy Records and offered the band a chance to record an album. Having hated the name "the Golliwogs" from day one, the band decided on their own name, Creedence Clearwater Revival, which they took in January 1968. According to interviews with the band members 20 years later, the name's elements came from three sources: Tom Fogerty's friend Credence Newball, whose name they changed to form the word Creedence ; a television commercial for Olympia Brewing Company ; and the four members' renewed commitment to their band. Rejected contenders for the band's name included "Muddy Rabbit", "Gossamer Wump", and "Creedence Nuball and the Ruby"; the last was the starting point, though, from which the band derived its final name. Cook described the name as "weirder than Buffalo Springfield or Jefferson Airplane". In early 1968 the band began appearing regularly at local San Francisco-area clubs and venues, including Deno and Carlo's, the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore West. Later that year the band began touring across the US and made their first appearances in New York City at the Fillmore East.By 1968, AM radio programmers around the U.S. took note when CCR's cover of the 1956 rockabilly song "Susie Q" received substantial airplay in the San Francisco Bay area and on Chicago's WLS-AM. It was the band's second single, its first to reach the top 40, and its only top-40 hit not written by John Fogerty. Two other singles were released from their May 1968 debut self-titled album, a cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put a Spell on You" and "Porterville", written during Fogerty's time in the Army Reserve.
Peak success: 1969–1970
After their breakthrough, CCR began touring and started work on their second album, Bayou Country, at RCA Studios in Los Angeles. A number-seven platinum hit, the record was their first in a string of hit albums and singles that continued uninterruptedly for two years. The single "Proud Mary", backed with "Born on the Bayou", reached number two on the national Billboard chart. The former eventually became the group's most covered song, with some 100 versions by other artists to date, including the number-four 1971 hit by Ike & Tina Turner, two years to the week after the original peaked. John cites this song as being the result of high spirits on gaining his discharge from the Army Reserve. The album also featured a cover of the rock and roll classic "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and the band's nine-minute live-show closer, "Keep On Chooglin.Months later, during April 1969, "Bad Moon Rising" backed with "Lodi", was released and peaked at number two in the US. In the United Kingdom, "Bad Moon Rising" spent three weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart during September and October 1969, becoming the band's only number-one single in the UK. The band's third album, Green River, which followed in August 1969, was their first album to top the Billboard 200, and went gold, along with the single "Green River", which also reached number two on the Billboard charts. The B-side of "Green River", "Commotion", peaked at number 30, and the band's emphasis on covers of old favorites continued with "Night Time Is the Right Time".
CCR continued to tour constantly, with performances in July 1969 at the Atlanta Pop Festival and in August 1969 at the Woodstock Festival. At Woodstock, the band took the stage in the early morning, hours after their scheduled start-time. They followed the Grateful Dead, who John said had put the audience to sleep. As he scanned the audience he saw a "Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud". In addition to the low-energy crowd, the band also experienced issues with their equipment and lighting, resulting in John vetoing their inclusion in the Woodstock film or soundtrack. Cook, however, praised their set, saying, "The performances are classic CCR and I'm still amazed by the number of people who don't even know we were one of the headliners at Woodstock '69."
After Woodstock, CCR were busy honing material for a fourth album, Willy and the Poor Boys, their second top-three LP, released in November 1969. "Down on the Corner" and "Fortunate Son", both of which they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show on November 16, 1969, climbed to number three and number 14, respectively, by year's end. The album was CCR in standard mode, featuring Fogerty originals and two reworked Lead Belly covers, "Cotton Fields" and "Midnight Special". The year 1969 had been remarkable for the band - three top-10 albums, four hit singles with three additional charting B-sides.
CCR released another double A-side hit, "Travelin' Band"/"Who'll Stop the Rain", in January 1970. The speedy "Travelin' Band", with a strong Little Richard sound, however, bore enough similarities to "Good Golly, Miss Molly" to warrant a lawsuit by the song's publisher; it was eventually settled out of court. The song ultimately topped out at number two. The band also recorded its January 31, 1970, live performance at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, which was later marketed as a live album and television special. In February, CCR was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone, although only John was interviewed in the accompanying article.
In April 1970, CCR were set to begin their first European tour. To support the upcoming live dates, John wrote "Up Around the Bend" and "Run Through the Jungle"; the single reached number four that spring. The band returned to Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco in June to record Cosmo's Factory. The album contained the earlier top-10 hits "Travelin' Band" and "Up Around the Bend", plus popular album tracks such as the opener "Ramble Tamble".
Cosmo's Factory was released in July 1970, and it was number one in the US for nine weeks. It was released along with the band's fifth and final number-two national hit, "Lookin' Out My Back Door"/"Long as I Can See the Light". Although they topped some international charts and local radio countdowns, CCR have the distinction of having had five number-two singles without ever having had a number one on the Hot 100, the most of any group. Their five number-two singles were exceeded only by Madonna, Taylor Swift, and Drake, and tied with Elvis Presley and the Carpenters. Conversely, on station WLS-AM, the band had three number ones, four number threes, and two number fours, but no number two singles, with "Down on the Corner" the only top-10 CCR single registering the same peak position on the Hot 100 and on WLS.
Other cuts on the Cosmo's Factory album included an 11-minute jam of Marvin Gaye’s 1968 cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and a nearly note-for-note homage to Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby". The album was their biggest seller, going to number one on the Billboard 200 album charts and number 11 on Billboard Soul Albums chart.
Pendulum, released in December 1970, was another top seller, spawning a top-10 hit with "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?". John played the Hammond B3 organ on many of the Pendulum tracks, notably on "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?", in recognition of the deep respect and influence of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, with whom the members of the band had jammed. The single's flip side, "Hey Tonight", was also a hit.