We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
After a bunch of hits and successful concert tours, the band Creedence Clearwater Revival were on their last legs in 1972 and it was mostly self-inflicted. Tom Fogerty had left the band and bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford had demanded more input into the recorded product. John Fogerty, the driving force behind the band, had had enough. He told Cook & Clifford that they would have to provide three songs each for the new LP and he would only play guitar on them. As you might expect, the album “Mardi Gras” was not very good although it still sold well and dropped a couple of Fogerty songs as hit singles.
The critics torched it. Rolling Stone’s Jon Landau went as far as saying ‘ relative to a group’s established level of performance, the worst album I have ever heard from a major rock band”.
My take is why would you believe that you could sing better than the guy who wrote and sang all of your big hits? It’s like Don Felder wanting to sing when Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Tim Schmidt are available. Makes no sense.
Clifford fares better than Cook. He channels Fogerty in songs like “Need Someone To Hold”, What Are You Gonna Do” and “Tearin Up The Country”. The less said about Cook’s singing the better. Both went on to join the Don Harrison Band in the mid 70’s and Cook was part of the country-rock outfit Southern Pacific in the 80’s.
Fogerty would go solo after this record and do an album called ‘The Blue Ridge Rangers” in which he would do up some old songs and play all the instruments. He practices for that with a version of Hello Mary Lou” here.
The hits were OK. ‘Sweet Hitchhiker” sounded good on the radio and was actually recorded and released as a single in 1971. “Someday Never Comes” comes across as a appropriate swan song.
For a band that delivered some of the best music ever from an American rock & roll band….this effort is subpar….but we’ll always have Fortunate Son…and Proud Mary…and Who’ll Stop the Rain…and Born on the Bayou…and…….
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