| November 18th, 2005 01:56 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
And the riffs just keep on coming
Iain Shedden
The Australian
November 18, 2005
JOHN Fogerty has hat hair. That's what his wife, Julie, says anyway, and she's concerned. Hairbrush in hand, she winds her way through the maze of corridors in the bowels of the Sydney Opera House and strides on to the concert hall stage to fix her husband's coiffure.
Fortunately this is during the soundcheck and not part of the act: just a bit of housekeeping before a photo opportunity. The 60-year-old American rock'n'roll legend is happy to accommodate it, but it doesn't stop him from doing what he does best: playing guitar. As his fellow musicians saunter off the stage, Fogerty remains, picking, strumming and plucking new and familiar licks on his instrument, oblivious to everything around him for at least 10 minutes. For most of that, not a hair is out of place.
This picture of contentment has not been constant in Fogerty's musical history. The man who led Creedence Clearwater Revival and wrote all of their hits during the late 1960s - Fortunate Son, Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary to name a few - spent many of his subsequent years smarting from contractual wrangles that had left him without ownership of his songs and denied royalties on record sales. The wounds haven't completely healed, but he has come to terms sufficiently with the past to re-sign to Fantasy, the record label that was the cause of his legal nightmare all those years ago.
This coming full circle is reflected in his latest stage performances, which feature a relentless barrage of classic American rock songs, ranging from those early Creedence hits through to his recent anti-war song, Deja Vu (All Over Again). The show is also, surely, one of the loudest to be heard in the Opera House.
Fogerty bounds and bounces across the stage like a man half his age. It's a great rock'n'roll performance - raw, high on energy and loaded with hooks that remain staples of classic-rock radio the world over - and it is given a deservedly rapturous reception.
Backstage, Fogerty is as disposed to lengthy and convivial conversation as he is to applause out front. Music, politics and history are among his passions. "Trust me," he says, laughing, "I have opinions on almost everything."
His opinions have not always been expressed in his lyrics, however. Although his Creedence hits painted a picture of life in the American south - the Mississippi, the bayous, places that, at the time, the Californian had never visited - they were bound in the traditional rock'n'roll topics of girls, cars and the wide open road.
Fortunate Son, about Vietnam, was an exception and so is Deja Vu (All Over Again), the title track of last year's solo album, which points the finger at President George W. Bush over the US involvement in Iraq. It's a subject that has affected him deeply.
"I think any politician, especially a president, has a lot of nerve sending kids off to die for a policy that is basically a corporate decision," Fogerty says. "How dare he send people to die to meet the bottom line! It's awful. OK, go cheat people out of taxes or out of their land ... fair enough, that happens all the time ... but having people die, that's forever. When Vietnam ended, after such a flawed policy ... and so many Australians died in that war too ... I remember at the time saying, 'Let's make sure that never happens again.' That has stuck in my mind for 30 years."
Hardly surprisingly, Deja Vu was not welcomed wholeheartedly in his homeland. The song was considered unpatriotic by some. The same thing happened to another American who is touring Australia, Steve Earle, when he released John Walker's Blues, a topical lament that focused on an American Taliban recruit.
"When I wrote Deja Vu, I knew the moment I finished it I was very proud of it. It was right in line with my songs from the late '60s. I thought it was a very good song, but naively I thought I'd just put it out there and it would get its usual exposure and that would be that. I had no idea that - certainly in America - the conservative side is so firmly entrenched and has such control over the media: TV stations, radio stations, newspapers.
"Back in the '60s, when you had [Richard] Nixon and his people saying stuff like 'you're un-American' or 'your country, right or wrong', or 'love it or leave it' ... I was almost a hippie and we laughed at that kind of stuff. I didn't know that in 2004, when there was a lot of that sentiment, starting with the president going around saying 'you're unpatriotic', people opposing the Iraq war would be shouted down. I had no idea that's what lay ahead of me. I couldn't find a place on network TV to sing my song ... the very same shows where I had done a lot of performances in the past." (Jay Leno let him do it.)
If Fogerty feels a sense of injustice over his treatment on television, it is nothing compared with the anger and frustration he felt towards Fantasy Records and, in particular, the label's owner, Saul Zaentz. CCR, formed by Fogerty and his brother Tom along with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford, crumbled amid acrimony in 1972. Fogerty bought his way out of his Fantasy contract but sacrificed future royalties in the process. The songs Vanz Kant Danz (the name was changed for legal reasons) and Mr Greed on his 1985 album Centrefield displayed the resentment he felt.
The injustice, as he saw it, combined with other lawsuits, became such a mental strain that Fogerty retired from music for almost a decade in the late '80s. "All those old ghosts are gone," he says. "It was such a struggle and it was rough on me. I was being cheated and screwed in the conditions of the music, the business arrangements. Eventually the music became too hard for me to perform with a happy face. That's why I stopped doing it."
Does he regret losing those years?
"Of course I do. It's not a case here of: 'Oh no, I wouldn't change anything.' I wish that none of that had ever happened. I wish that the original Fantasy people had been nice people. I wish that my former Creedence bandmates had been jolly jolly souls who treated me with respect. We'd probably still be a band."
Perhaps, I suggest, it's better not to dwell on such things.
"Your sister and your psychiatrist will say things like that to you, but it's very hard on the person who's affected. You can't just change."
What you can do is get back on the road, something Fogerty has been doing regularly in recent years. He's also writing songs for a new album, to be released on Fantasy (which is under new ownership) next year. Most important of all, musically speaking, he is spending every day of his life trying to become a better guitar player. This from someone voted among the top 40 guitarists of all time in a Rolling Stone magazine poll.
"If you know anything about me at all, that's really where it all starts," he says of his playing.
"If I have a nice guitar thing, a song quickly follows. If I don't have a nice guitar thing, I'm kinda like a sailor with no ship. I need that guitar hook before I can get started."
He says Julie is a rock'n'roll widow, not least because he sits around the house playing guitar all day.
"I practise guitar constantly at home. I've wanted to elevate my ability on the guitar. When I was a child, I made a promise to myself that I was going to grow up and be great, like [American guitar legend] Chet Atkins, those kinds of people. I grew up and became famous instead. I was 48 years old when I remembered I was going to do that. At that point I had to make the decision. 'You said you were going to be great and you're not.' That's when I got really busy."
There is still time for family, however. Fogerty became a father for the third time at 56 and his four-year-old daughter, Kelsy, is doing her own exploring of the Opera House's myriad hallways. His teenage sons, Shane and Tyler, keep him in touch with today's rock'n'roll bands. They introduced him to the music of Melbourne rockers Jet, for instance, and he is now a committed fan. Jet's song Cold Hard Bitch features one of his favourite guitar riffs, he says, and Jet can be heard over the PA just before Fogerty takes the stage.
Riffs are important, he says.
"Let's say [his hit song] Green River ... you know, that's a great riff and I'm proud of it. But Back in Black [by AC/DC] is a great riff, too, and I sit and play that one a lot. You start off when you're young learning the great riffs of rock'n'roll. I was lucky that I was just about playing when rock'n'roll was born. These things ... I was ready for them as they were born on the radio ... Chuck Berry, Scotty Moore ... this stuff was happening as I grew up."
Jet will be doing well if their songs endure in the way Fogerty's have done. His Australian set list features one perennial favourite after another: Who'll Stop the Rain, Rockin' All Over the World, Travelling Band, Green River, Down By the River, Up Around the Bend and many more.
"Who could have predicted that would happen?" he says of his catalogue's longevity.
"I'm just a very fortunate guy. I wrote very pure, direct, simple and concise songs. They may be simple but they're not stupid. Thirty-five years later I'm not ashamed of them. I think they are well written. I chose my words well. I chose my melodies well. It certainly felt I was on top of my game then, just as I feel I am now."
John Fogerty plays at Sandalford Wines, Perth, tomorrow; Derwent Entertainment Centre, Hobart, on Tuesday; Palais Theatre, Melbourne, on Thursday; and Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley, Victoria, on November26. Tickets: $93.50-$137.50. Bookings: 136100.
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| November 18th, 2005 02:03 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
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| November 18th, 2005 03:05 AM |
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| Zack |
A true legend. Blue Moon Swamp is especially fantastic. |
| November 18th, 2005 04:44 AM |
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| albert |
saw him perform this year in the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. Great show, mostly CCR and some new songs.
You can buy a DVD called JF live in Austin 2004. Cheap price for a very good tv. show.
Recommended.
Albert
Holland |
| November 18th, 2005 06:35 AM |
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| J.J.Flash |
I just can't accept the fact they split. Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and the other guy I can't remember the name, I mean, the core of the band are still alive. So, instead of that Creedence Clearwater "Revisted", with that new guitarrist and singer, why they don't start thinking in a Reunion Tour, like Cream or Black Sabbath and keep their brilliant music going on?!?
John is the heart and soul of CCR, in fact, John Fogerty IS the CCR. |
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