What was CCR's problem? They were so good and their music

[Bruxist]

As the saying goes, "You run into an a-hole in the morning, you ran into an a-hole; you run into a-holes all day, you're the a-hole."

That said, I like John Fogerty. Personally, I think I love the stuff on Chronicle II better than what is on Chronicle I at this point.

I tended to like their swampy or blues or R&B stuff more than their countrified stuff.

 

[omahaaudio]

I love, LOVE CCR, but I also recognize that a lot of their songs use the same formula, and once you've heard one or maybe five of their songs, you've kind of heard them all.

GOOD GRIEF! WERE CREDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL THE NICKELBACK OF THEIR DAY?

 

[omahaaudio]

"We decided to give this new contract to our bass player, Stu Cook, to have his father look it over. Stu’s dad was a prominent attorney with a prestigious law firm in the Bay Area whose clients included the Oakland Raiders."

How about going to a lawyer familiar with copyright law?

 

[pypa]

They hold a record for the most#2 hits without ever hitting #1 on Billboard.

CCR Still Holds the Record for Most No. 2 Songs Without a No. 1

Their runners-up are all classics.

slate.com

For all their Swampy bayou talk, they were raised in Northern California.

 

[Skully]

I probably couldn't get into it at first either, like Dylan's, but got over it and really liked it eventually.

To be fair, whether one likes it or not, John voice is an amazing instrument. Dylan has a voice that is, technically speaking, pretty awful, but he is able to use it to amazing interpretive and emotional effect.

CCR was made up of two biological brothers, and two others who might as well have been their brothers. There's a heavy family thing going on there, with all the usual resentments. John usurped his older brother. That is not the way it's supposed to be. They've been smelling John's farts, literally and figuratively, since they were wet behind the ears, and now he's being hailed assome frickin' genius? I'm sure that was hard for everyone to take, including John.

Like 'em or not, those songs and that sound are undeniable. Their final album "Mardi Gras" may not have been so great -- it's certainly nowhere as good as what came before "Pendulum" -- but it has "Someday Never Comes" (below), which rarely gets any love. We should all be lucky enough to suck that much.

 

[Skully]

How about going to a lawyer familiar with copyright law?

Yeah! They should've just looked it up on the internet and ...

For many years, sound music legal advice was hard to come by. Who's going to recommend an attorney for you? Probably someone at your label. Even the best of them know in the back of their mind that the main source of their business is the labels, not the individuals they represent, ethics notwithstanding. That said, at least lawyers are very conscious of the idea that they have ethical obligations. Agents and managers, not so much.

 

[vjf1968]

John Fogerty must have an ego the size of the lower 48. Not reconciling with his dying brother is inexcusable as a human.
Also lost a lot of personal respect for Elliot Easton for playing in Creedance Clearwater Revisited. Just like Little River Band.
A dirty business.

The reconciling with his brother thing is an apocryphal story. It's family business but remember it was Tom along with Saul Zaentz that sued John in the 70's. The same same Saul Zaentz that let the other 3 out of their contract and kept John beholding to it. When your own brother sides with the very person causing you strife the whole becomes a major problem. Their other brother Robert, stuck by John if that is anything to go by. Sometimes blood is just blood.

 

[beyer160]

Explain the abject failure of the Mardi Gras album in any other terms. I'd love to hear it. Bandmembers are not equals when it comes to talent and I can just imagine John Fogerty, after all the bickering from the "other musical geniuses" in the band, holding the door to the studio open and with a sweep of the arm gesture saying "Here's your big chance. Show me what you got."

Egos are understandable if you have the substance to back it up, inexcusable when you don't.

You clearly haven't been paying attention, it's been touched on several times in this thread. Go shove your political agenda somewhere else.

 

[brookdalebill]

Six pages.
The band’s been defunct for 50 years.
Impressive, still!

 

[2HBStrat]

Six pages.
The band’s been defunct for 50 years.
Impressive, still!

How defunct are they, though, really, when two acts are touring playing all of those classic songs?

 

[brookdalebill]

How defunct are they, though, really, when two acts are touring playing all of those classic songs?

And every bar band in North America, too!

 

[Dave Hicks]

And every bar band in North America, too!

Uke clubs seem to love 'em, too.

D.H.

 

[boris bubbanov]

Yeah! They should've just looked it up on the internet and ...

For many years, sound music legal advice was hard to come by. Who's going to recommend an attorney for you? Probably someone at your label. Even the best of them know in the back of their mind that the main source of their business is the labels, not the individuals they represent, ethics notwithstanding. That said, at least lawyers are very conscious of the idea that they have ethical obligations. Agents and managers, not so much.

Thank you. You hit on it, perfectly right there.

People of this era, so badly wanted Brotherhood and wanted to be able to shake hands on things and have it turn out just right. Lawyers were an anathema and they were scarce, so scarce in comparison to today where everyone has got a JD. Also, making truly huge amounts of money in the music business was for the most part, a brand new thing. Maybe we should be glad, there weren't even more trainwrecks than there were.

I remember, before MCLE, trying to find legal seminars on this subject in the late 1970s and they just were not out there.

 

[Wildeman]

Flo and Eddy explain a bit about how screwed you could get in those days, I found it pretty interesting.

I guess my point in adding this, is that most of those guys had absolutely no understanding of business and finance, they were kids that just wanted to be famous and play music.

 

[Rufus]

I admit that I haven't read all of the posts in this thread.
I seem to recall a Guitar Player article from the 1980's that interviewed John as well as the other three.

One of the quotes that made me chuckle was "We tried to play baseball but John wanted to play all the positions."
I guess he was somewhat of a control freak but its understandable when you're the one writing and singing Top Ten songs.

And John's side was that he was writing all the hits but the band was jealous that their (unpopular) songs weren't making it on to the albums. As already stated, the non-JF songs went nowhere.

I also recall a similar situation with a band member of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap going to a record company executive, complaining about why they had to record songs written by non band members.
The executive listened to his complaint about 30 seconds and directed his secretary to bring in the sales figures on their records.
He basically said..."when you can write songs that sell millions and get into the Top 40, then you have a complaint. Until then, get out of my office and don't come back."

Like Hollywood, they are in the business of selling product, not creating art.