John Fogerty Keeps On Chooglin’
In 50 Years, He Has Written a Song For Everyone
By Dave Felice
Special to the GPHN
After nearly 50 years of writing and performing, being recognized as a “grand old man of rock’n’roll,” and adding a new verb to the American language, John Fogerty is still churning out his brand of straight-up swamp rock and country influenced popular music.
Fogerty founded, played lead guitar, and wrote many of the songs of Creedence Clearwater Revival. A native of Berkeley, Calif., he coined the verb “choogle” in his 1969 songs Born On the Bayou and Keep on Chooglin’. “It was just a fun expression that I made up,” says Fogerty. “It wasn’t a real word but I wanted to have a word that sounded kind of like ‘rockin,’ ‘shufflin,’ ‘boogie,’ kind of rock’n’roll.”
The latest CD recording from Fogerty is not musical at all. In Tales from the Bayou, released last year, he talks about the influences of imaginative storytelling and the gritty sounds of southern blues in intimate comments not previously presented as a compilation.
‘I knew we had a real song’
In Tales, Fogerty talks about how The Golliwogs was the first incarnation of a collaborative band with his older brother and rhythm guitarist Tom, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford. Fogerty says he really started writing earnestly when he completed his active Army duty in 1967.
“The first thing I wrote (in my idea notebook) was the name ‘Proud Mary.’ Somehow that drifted in the rollin’, rollin’ chorus and I knew we had a real song. We always envisioned ourselves as knocking out something important (with that song).”
As he wrote, he says this “mythical southern bayou place” started to take shape as he tried to free his mind instead of following the trend of the day. “This swamp idea developed into something unique.” He says he didn’t always have a guitar while writing songs and most of the time he was just compiling ideas.
Fogerty says he was strongly influenced in the early 1950s by the sound of both southern blues and country. “I unconsciously developed this southern fix, but I never really sat down and intellectualized it. At the time, when you said ‘rock’, you were really saying ‘south’ and here I was sucking up all these influences, from Red River Valley to Otis Redding to Howlin’ Wolf.”
He says he pieced together the name of the band from watching a television commercial about clean water and something substantial about “putting a tag on the emotion.”
He says that evolved into clearwater and creedence, while the revival part came from reconstructing the Golliwogs. “It wasn’t unusual at that time to have a long name in the Bay Area (and) with that name you’ll think it’s something real and from the south.”
Running through the jungle
Fogerty says he first learned to play the song Endless Sleep “on an old Stella guitar we had around the house” and he picked up playing the piano about the same time. At one point, he says he surprised his mother by playing piano with his right hand, drums with his left, and singing at the same time.
Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up in 1972. The next year, Fogerty recorded an album of country music credited to “The Blue Ridge Rangers.” There was only one Ranger; Fogerty produced, arranged, played all the instruments, and sang the songs.
Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz retained ownership of most of the CCR songs and Fogerty lost the rights. For many years after, Fogerty refused to perform the CCR songs song so Zentz wouldn’t get the royalties.
Because he thought two songs on Fogerty’s 1985 solo album Centerfield were defamatory, Zaentz sued Fogerty and the songs were revised. In another lawsuit, Zaentz claimed The Old Man Down the Road had the same chorus as the Creedence song Run Through the Jungle. Fogerty eventually won in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fogerty was set back emotionally and stopped performing for a while after Tom Fogerty died in 1990. John and his brother were not speaking to each other at the time of Tom’s death.
In 1993, Creedence Clearwater Revival was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Fogerty refused to play with Stu Cook and Doug Clifford.
In his solo career, John became increasingly particular about the quality of his music. He was reluctant to perform until he recruited virtuoso drummer Kenny Aronoff of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Aronoff’s reputation for perfection rivals that of Fogerty.
In 2005, Geffen Records acquired Fantasy and Fogerty returned with The Long Road Home, a compilation of CCR and solo performances.
Fortunate Son
Fogerty has a history of social protest in his compositions. One of his earliest, Fortunate Son, is a strong indictment of avoiding the draft.
His 2004 Deja Vu All Over Again was a complaint of the Iraq war as another foreign entanglement similar to Vietnam. The 2007 Long Dark Night attacks the administration of President George W. Bush.
When Fogerty performs his rock anthem Bad Moon Rising live, he changes the words in the final chorus to “There’s a bathroom on the right” in recognition of a long-standing misunderstanding of the original “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
When he sings Centerfield, Fogerty uses a guitar shaped like a baseball bat.
He recently performed live in Denver, had a two-week engagement in Las Vegas, and went on tour in western Canada. At age 71, Fogerty is now known for his collaborations with other artists, notably country music performers Keith Urban and Alan Jackson.
In his 2013 album Wrote a Song for Everyone, Fogerty teams with Bob Seger on a creative arrangement of Who’ll Stop the Rain that sounds more like it was originally done by Seger than by Creedence.
Fogerty’s 2007 composition Creedence Song pays tribute to his own long musical history.
Dave Felice is is a member of National Writers Union, Local 1981, and recipient of awards in 2015 and 2016 from the Society of Professional Journalists for news column writing. He can be contacted at gelato321@aol.com.