Creedence Clearwater Revival Willy & The Poor Boys CD

Additional Tracks

Composer: John Fogerty.
Lyricist: John Fogerty.
Creedence Clearwater Revival: John Fogerty (vocals, guitar); Stu Cook (bass guitar, background vocals); Doug Clifford (drums, background vocals); Tom Fogerty (background vocals).
Audio Remasterer: George Horn.
Make no mistake, Willy & the Poor Boys is a fun record, perhaps the breeziest album CCR ever made. Apart from the eerie minor-key closer "Effigy" (one of John Fogerty's most haunting numbers), there is little of the doom that colored Green River. Fogerty's rage remains, blazing to the forefront on "Fortunate Son," a working-class protest song that cuts harder than any of the explicit Vietnam protest songs of the era, which is one of the reasons that it hasn't aged where its peers have. Also, there's that unbridled vocal from Fogerty and the ferocious playing on CCR, which both sound fresh as they did upon release. "Fortunate Son" is one of the greatest, hardest rock & rollers ever cut, so it might seem to be out of step with an album that is pretty laid-back and friendly, but there's that elemental joy that by late '69 was one of CCR's main trademarks. That joy runs throughout the album, from the gleeful single "Down on the Corner" and the lazy jugband blues of "Poorboy Shuffle" through the great slow blues jam "Feelin' Blue" to the great rockabilly spiritual "Don't Look Now," one of Fogerty's overlooked gems. The covers don't feel like throwaways, either, since both "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special" have been overhauled to feel like genuine CCR songs. It all adds up to one of the greatest pure rock & roll records ever cut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Opening up with the feel-good, down-home groove of the hit "Down on the Corner" and featuring all-out, belligerent roots rock like "Fortunate Son" and loose, soul-drenched instrumentals like "Side Of The Road," WILLY AND THE POOR BOYS is sensational from start to finish. Throughout CCR's brief career, their sound was a musical evocation of a mythic rural South, and WILLY AND THE POOR BOYS is arguably the most Southern-sounding of all their records. Even though this t10-song album is padded out with cover versions of such folk-blues standards as "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special," John and brother Tom Fogerty's ragged electric guitar playing and the minimalist bass and drum work of Stu Cook and Doug Clifford make these well-known songs sound like Creedence originals.

Rolling Stone (p.74) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[The album] upped the anger ante on 'Fortunate Son,' which rages against class-based draft inequality with rare, beat-driven fury..."
Blender (Magazine) (p.84) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "WiLLY AND THE POOR BOYS is their loosest and most class-conscious record."