Berkeley, CA · classic-rock · roots rock

John Fogerty

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The voice of Creedence — swamp-rock standards that never left the radio, sung by the man who wrote them.

John Fogerty, born John Cameron Fogerty in Berkeley, California in 1945, grew up in nearby El Cerrito, one of five brothers whose father worked as a Linotype operator and mother taught school. As a teenager he formed a cover band, the Blue Velvets, with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford, later joined by his brother Tom. In 1964 the group signed to Fantasy Records, which renamed them the Golliwogs for a string of singles that went nowhere.

That lineup became Creedence Clearwater Revival, with Fogerty as singer, guitarist and songwriter. Between 1968 and 1972 the band produced a run of songs, among them "Proud Mary," "Bad Moon Rising," "Green River," "Fortunate Son" and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain," that welded rockabilly, blues and country into a compact, swamp-flavoured sound, sung in Fogerty's hard, carrying tenor, and racked up nine Top 10 singles and eight gold albums before the band split in 1972 and was later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After the group broke up he pursued a solo career, returning with the album Centerfield in the mid-1980s. He was later named to Rolling Stone's lists of the 100 Greatest Songwriters and 100 Greatest Singers, and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005. Much of his later life was shaped by a long dispute with his former label over ownership of the Creedence catalogue, and by years in which he declined to perform those songs at all.

He eventually resumed playing them, and his live sets now draw heavily on that material. Dave Grohl, two of whose Nirvana bandmates first played together in a Creedence tribute band, has said Fogerty's songs pull whole crowds together no matter who is standing in them.

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classic-rockroots rock