Born in
Berkeley California on the 28th of may 1945 John Fogerty is probably best known for his singing and songwriting contributions to
Creedence Clearwater Revival.
CCR was one of the biggest and most successful acts of its time, easily crossing several
genres of music. Increasing tension with band member and brother
Tom Fogerty combined with lagging sales resulted in Tom leaving the band and eventually Johns own departure in 1972.
Being a talented
songwriter with a distinctive singing voice and instrumentation he launched what should have been a blazing
solo career in 1973. He recorded the self titled ‘
Blue Ridge Rangers’, notable because it is composed entirely of
country and
gospel covers. More impressively John played all the instruments, did all the mixing, and over dubbed all the voices. His face didn’t appear on the album and he took a very low profile, trying to distance himself from the pain of his separation with CCR.
Despite all that it still sounded very much like Fogerty and two of the singles were US hits. Unfortunately this
album was the beginning of more than a decade of legal problems for the artist. He charged that his record label,
Fantasy Records, did not promote the album enough and he demanded a release from his
contract. The label disagreed and demanded he produce another eight albums. They remained at a
Mexican stand off until
Asylum Records bought the North American rights to Fogerty’s contract while Fantasy retained the copyright for everywhere else.
Fogerty had several moderate successes but nothing substantial until his 1985 release, ‘
Centerfield’. This album contained the hit single ‘
Old Man Down the Road’ as well as the controversial, ‘Mr. Greed’ and ‘Zanz Kan’t Danz’. Fantasy Records owner
Saul Zaentz believed that both songs were personal attacks on him and sued Fogerty for $142 Million claiming
slander and additionally filed for the profits of ‘Old Man Down the Road’. Zaentz claimed that Fogerty had plagiarized CCR’s ‘
Run Through the Jungle’, a song that Fogerty had written, but which Zaentz still held the rights for.
Fogerty became the only person to have to appear in court and musically demonstrate, by playing both songs, that he had not plagiarized himself. Fogerty responded with a fourth album ‘Eye of the Zombie’, but although it lead to a series of great
live shows, it failed to sell as well as the previous albums. In recent years Fogerty has kept a low public profile and eventually even received an
undisclosed decision against Zaentz’s
punitive case.