- Writer: John Fogerty
- Producer: John Fogerty
- Released: April 1969
- Players:
John Fogerty — vocals, guitar
Tom Fogerty — guitar
Stu Cook — bass
Doug “Cosmo” Clifford — drums - Album: Green River (Fantasy, 1969)
- Also On:
Creedence Gold (Fantasy, 1972)
Live In Europe (Fantasy, 1973)
Chronicle (Fantasy, 1976)
Hot Stuff (Fantasy, 1977)
The Concert (Fantasy, 1980)
The Concert (Fantasy, 1981)
Hits Album (Fantasy, 1982)
Best Of, Volume 1 (Fantasy, 1988)
Recollection (Varese, 1998) (Creedence Clearwater Revisited)
At The Movies (Fantasy, 2000)
Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy, 2001) - Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) fashioned their Bayou-influenced, rootsy swamp sound in San Francisco, where the band was based after their initial formation in El Cerrito, California, in 1959 as Tommy Fogerty & the Blue Velvets.
- Among their ’60s and early ’70s counterparts, CCR easily stands as the most effective singles band of the era. The armload of hits the group amassed in a mere couple of years reads like a roll call of rock history, including “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Fortunate Son,” “Down On The Corner,” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” and “Bad Moon Rising.”
- The tune may be cheery, but like much of John Fogerty‘s writing, the lyric was somber and forewarning. The lines “Don’t go out tonight/It’s bound to take your life” were prophetic and spooky.
FAST FORWARD:
- “Bad Moon Rising” has been covered by artists including Faces and Humble Pie frontman Steve Marriott, Queen Ida & Her Zydeco Band, and Reeves Gabrels of Tin Machine.
- CCR disbanded in 1972, just four years after they released their first album. The group reunited for two low-profile instances — Tom Fogerty‘s wedding in 1980 and a school reunion in 1983. They remain one of the only groups of such celebrated stature to avoid the lure of reforming.
- In fact, John Fogerty’s relationship with his old bandmates seems irreparably strained. He refused to play with them when CCR was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and he has battled in court to keep Stu Cook and Doug Clifford from using the name Creedence Clearwater Revisited, a fight he ultimately lost.
- In 1987, Fogerty ended his boycott of not playing any CCR material in his live act, and sang eight of his former band’s songs in a show for Vietnam veterans.
- Tom Fogerty died of tuberculosis in 1990 at age 48.