Photo credit: Robert Eickhoff
A 73-year-old John Fogerty sprinted onto the stage at the Riverside Theater, leading a five-piece band that included his son Shane playing the guitar. Fogerty considers himself a lucky guy and didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that fact several times during a performance of wall-to-wall songs that have become a part of rock ’n’ roll’s fabric.
Building on a handful of tunes from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Woodstock set, Fogerty remarkably seems to have lost little in terms of energy, voice and musical chops. (Maybe Dorian Gray should check Fogerty’s portrait.) During CCR’s five-year reign, the band released a string of hit records, a number of which charted both A- and B-sides. History has a way of repeating itself and songs like “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” still resonate.
Thursday night, at least, Fogerty kept any of his political views to himself and let the music do the talking. “Traveling Band” is still as good as any Beatles/Little Richard rip-off, complete with a blasting saxophone solo. “Green River” may be as close as rock ’n’ roll has come to Mark Twain. Sporting events may have made listeners immune to the charms of “Centerfield,” but Fogerty brought the song to life and even took a selfie with a toddler who was likely the youngest fan in the house.
His mastery as a songwriter is predicated on Fogerty’s value of simplicity. “Down on the Corner” and “Proud Mary” were performed with all the passion of a garage band. Like George Harrison, another guitarist in a well-known band of his era, Fogerty’s playing drew a line back to Sun Records and economical players like Carl Perkins and Steve Cropper.
Throughout CCR’s run, their taste in covers was impeccable. On this night, Fogerty and company offered Little Richard’s “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” Lead Belly’s “Cotton Fields,” Gary “U.S.” Bonds’ “New Orleans” and extended arrangement of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”—the rare jam that actually paid off.
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“My 50 Year Trip” seems like an ironic title for a guy who was nearly straight edge before that term was coined. Because CCR’s performance was absent from both the Woodstock movie and soundtrack many fans don’t realize the band played the legendary festival between The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Yet in 1969, at the height of hippie hedonism, CCR were firing on all cylinders. He said they went on at 2 a.m. and had to follow Dead. “People were impatient then and went to sleep. Today, they watch the president all day.”
Still flying the flannel, not on a shirt but on a Les Paul guitar, one mystery has never been solved. When Fogerty, his brother Tom, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford formed their band in El Cerrito, Calif., they were 2000 miles away from Cajun swampland. Somehow, Fogerty again conjured hoodoo tonight with “Born on the Bayou,” “Run Through the Jungle” and “Long as I Can See the Light.”
