Creedence Clearwater Revival CD

Additional Tracks

Creedence Clearwater Revival: John Fogerty (vocals, guitar); Tom Fogerty (guitar); Stu Cook (bass); Doug Clifford (drums).
Includes liner notes by Ben Fong-Torres.
Digitally remastered utilizing the 20-Bit K2 Super Coding System.
The deluxe 6-CD box set CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL contains all the original CCR releases including: CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL (1968)/BAYOU COUNTRY (1969)/GREEN RIVER (1969)/WILLY & THE POOR BOYS (1969)/COSMOS'S FACTORY (1970)/PENDULUM (1970)/MARDIS GRAS (1972). Disc 1 includes rare pre-Creedence Clearwater Revival recordings by Tommy Fogerty & The Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs.
Creedence Clearwater Revival: John Fogerty (vocals, guitar, harmonica, horns, organ, tambourine); Tom Fogerty (guitar, background vocals); Stu Cook (bass, background vocals); Doug Clifford (drums, background vocals).
Additional personnel: Tommy Fogerty & The Blue Velvets; The Golliwogs.
Producers include: John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook, Doug Clifford, Saul Zaentz.
Includes essays by Ben-Fong Torres and Alec Palao plus individual album liner notes by Ben-Fong Torres, Joel Selvin, Dave Marsh, Ed Ward, Robert Christgau, Craig Werner and Stanley Booth.
Digitally remastered using 20-bit K2 Super Coding technology by Shigeo Miyamoto (JVC Studios) and Joe Tarantino (Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).
Released in the summer of 1968 -- a year after the summer of love, but still in the thick of the Age of Aquarius - Creedence Clearwater Revival's self-titled debut album was gloriously out-of-step with the times, teeming with John Fogerty's Americana fascinations. While many of Fogerty's obsessions and CCR's signatures are in place -- weird blues ("I Put a Spell on You"), Stax R&B (Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-Nine and a Half"), rockabilly ("Susie Q"), winding instrumental interplay, the swamp sound, and songs for "The Working Man" -- the band was still finding their way. Out of all their records (discounting Mardi Gras), this is the one that sounds the most like its era, thanks to the wordless vocal harmonies toward the end of "Susie Q," the backward guitars on "Gloomy," and the directionless, awkward jamming that concludes "Walking on the Water." Still, the band's sound is vibrant, with gutsy arrangements that borrow equally from Sun, Stax, and the swamp. Fogerty's songwriting is a little tentative. Not for nothing were two of the three singles pulled from the album covers (Dale Hawkins' "Susie Q," Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You") -- he wasn't an accomplished tunesmith yet. Though "The Working Man" isn't bad, the true exception is that third single, "Porterville," an exceptional song with great hooks, an underlying sense of menace, and the first inkling of the working-class rage that fueled such landmarks as "Fortunate Son." It's the song that points the way to the breakthrough of Bayou Country, but the rest of the album shouldn't be dismissed, because judged simply against the rock & roll of its time, it rises above its peers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
In 2000, Fantasy finally treated the Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog with the respect it deserved, remastering the entire catalog and issuing them in lavish editions with rich liner notes and slipcases. So, when they decided to release a "complete recorded works" box set a year later, the results weren't quite as revelatory as they may have been, since even if this was remastered again, it's hard for most listeners to notice the difference between this and the previous material, and all the liner notes -- from such luminaries as Dave Marsh, Ben Fong-Torres, Ed Ward, Stanley Booth, and Robert Christgau -- are printed as the liners here, meaning that for the hardcore who bought the whole catalog a year before, this is almost anti-climatic. That is the operative word here, since there is one thing that makes this set essential for the fanatics, even if they bought the remasters, and that's the first disc, whichEntertainment Weekly (11/16/01, p.134) - "...This box is as filler-free as CCR's music..." - Rating: B+
Mojo (Publisher) (12/01, p.116) - "...Suprisingly powerful..."