Creedence Clearwater Revival vs the Grateful Dead vs the Band

i think all of fogerty's lyrics were heavy on the sexual innuendo -- you don't even want to know what he was talking about when he sang "oh lord stuck in lodi again"

triple! it's ok, my joke was just that hilarious.

nice to see that the warehouse decree still stands

rip stence u were cranky

what the horse?

wtfogarty

those posts were chooglin'.

rip fogerty u were choogly

heaven needed to choogle

feelin' blue, blue, blue, blue (balls)

I know as a kid and up to a few years ago, it would always be CCR. It's kind of hard to argue with those singles and that sound they had. How screwed up Fantasy and "the band" situation got with John Fogarty is one of the odd and completely sad stories in rock. I think Fogarty kind of just gave it up for a long time and really I don't think ever got over it until really a few years back, once he could play his own tunes again. Brother against brother to the deathbed, I can't really blame JF for flipping them the bird at the whole rock and roll hall of fame. Could you imagine Reprise turning Crazy Horse or Buffalo Springfield against Neil Young? Talk about killing the goose that laid golden eggs. CCR is pretty much the majordomo bar band and those golden singles will probably be sung in bands with guitars for a good long time.

The Bands' story is just sad, as it seems that Robbie Robertson is/was a pretty big egomaniac that tried to take credit for inventing the wheel. Those first two records and the stuff they did with Dylan is pretty sharp. They could definitely sing better harmonies than any of those three bands. I think some of the two keyboard arrangements are a bit ornate. When it's on like say Chest Fever its cool, but some of the songs it's not my favorite. They were unique, but I appreciate them more than really like them.

I've kind of skirted around liking and not liking the Dead for years. Their music just seemed to be around and I think over time I began to like it more and in the last few years, far removed from having to deal with 'the fans' or anything else it really clicked with me. All three of these bands are kind of out of the roots of rock and roll and liked to stretch it out live, but the Dead is really a very different beast. There is overlap, but really they were a different thing.

i dig grapevine by CCR, I wish they had stretched out more elsewhere. endless choogle.

― tylerw, Friday, August 10, 2012 2:17 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't have it handy, but Dave Marsh's writeup of CCR in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide characterized "Grapevine" as (I'm paraphrasing) "Fogerty burning to prove he was as much of an artist as anyone in the Grateful Dead -- he didn't know he was much, much more."

Also, worlds colliding etc. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V98p-qrbK1c

Tom Fogerty played with a bunch of Dead dudes iirc - all those guys knew each other

Poor Jer stepping in front of a train:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj0WBO6VQJQ&feature=related

That Marsh quote was buried in the recesses of my mind somewhere--when this poll went up, I had a vague memory of someone specifically contrasting CCR favorably against the Grateful Dead. I thought maybe it was Ellen Willis in her Illustrated History piece, but Marsh makes a lot more sense.

Poor Jer stepping in front of a train:

drummer is terrible. jesus christ lay off the ride cymbal dude

i lasted 95 seconds on the first vid... the dead were so hopelessly tone deaf, out of tune and rhythmically challenged for a jam band... and then there's the fans.

sorry, you have to love 'em, they beat both rush and yes in the last poll!

lol garcia looks so helpless in that fortunate son clip

It always seemed like CCR didn't really get fawned on at the time in the 60s by the rock press like the bands on the other side of the bay, mostly as they were dudes dressed to work at the lumberyard instead of all you need is love, but that is kind of why their studio records sound a bit more timeless compared to say Anthem of the Sun. CCR were really the rock band going back to the roots as they had never really left them in the first place.

That looks like Steve Jordan on drums with Fogarty in the clip.

drummer is terrible. jesus christ lay off the ride cymbal dude

Ha, I totally love Steve Jordan. Killed with Keef's band, and made sure Neil Young's SNL performance was one for the ages.

man that dead/forgery born on the bayou...man....all these clips of the dead in the late 80s early 90s in these big outdoor shows are so profoundly depressing to me....just like the worst vibe ever....like there's always like a 100 ft between them and the audience and they are so feeble and jerry looks lost and confused and everything just degrades into this sort of bored lope....and the crowd clearly has no idea how terrible it all is because the are seeing The Grateful Dead (TM) and getting a Genuine Grateful Dead Concert

which i'm not even against arena or stadium rock but at least U2 does it right and gives you a 200 foot tall robot spider that shoots lightning and shit, that's the only way to do it, it's gotta be marvel comics

also guys it's FOGERTY

or all that shit marsh wrote about queen being "fascist"! freddie had to be! you gotta make those fuckers rock.

i dunno, the crowd there seems pretty confused and lost too

Queen aesthetic is pretty fascist tbrr

For everyone who ever wondered what "Bayou" would sound like with Daltrey singing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZbdN2dWJxw

It always seemed like CCR didn't really get fawned on at the time in the 60s by the rock press like the bands on the other side of the bay

I've always taken this to be true--said as much upthread--but the truth is, I don't really know; I was too young at the time. I just checked Jon Landau's review of Mardi Gras that I have in a collection of RS reviews, and, at the very end, he calls it "the worst album I have ever heard by a major rock band." Double-edged sword--that's at the end of a paragraph where extols their singles, and he does call them major.

"he extols"

Queen aesthetic is pretty fascist tbrr

― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier)

That's what they also said about Devo.

All 3 of these are bands I would never have listened to had I not read ILM. As it is I've still never heard the Band and don't really like much by the Grateful Dead that I've listened to, but I basically love CCR. Favourite CCR album track is Effigy off Willy & The Poor Boys.

Queen aesthetic is pretty fascist tbrr

― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, August 10, 2012 3:55 PM (42 minutes ago)

imperious, imperial even. they are called "queen", after all...

equating devo w/ fascism is lunacy

I don't know who leveled that charge at Devo, but I don't think it was Marsh. He did call them "Meat Loaf for college kids," though, which is otm.

It always seemed like CCR didn't really get fawned on at the time in the 60s by the rock press like the bands on the other side of the bay

This surprised me too, but I've done heaps of research on it, and it's amazing how true it was. They're weren't exactly derided per se, but they were scoffed at as a second-rate combo who were opportunistic posers at best. Funny now, because Fogerty's been more consistent in his approach to music than most of the "other side of the bay" crowd turned out to be.

Here's a description from "Chronicles" that spells it out a bit:

Guided, perhaps, by musical snobbery or roots-rock phobia, some people inexplicably don't like Creedence Clearwater Revival. As the kings of earnest country-inflected rock in an age when radical stances were de rigueur, CCR sported straight-ahead tunes, and may have seemed a bit unhip. But their music stands the test of time with a vengeance. For the doubtful listener, this outstanding, 20-track hits collection has evidence of their greatness in staggering abundance.

Are those Marcus's liner notes for Chronicles, though? That's why I'm wondering if I internalized this view from a small group of critics who loved them. Marcus did, Christgau did, Marsh did, Willis did...I'm trying to figure out who didn't love them at the time.

Meltzer did not.

dead/forgery

lol, thanking u

They're weren't exactly derided per se, but they were scoffed at as a second-rate combo who were opportunistic posers at best. Funny now, because Fogerty's been more consistent in his approach to music than most of the "other side of the bay" crowd turned out to be.

Wasn't that consistency part of the problem though compared to what the other bands of the time were doing? It's part of why I can't really get into them as an album band because everything gets so samey. I think it's also why I didn't realize how great they really were for a long time, because I knew I liked their songs when they came on the radio or whatever, but I never realized the sheer volume of totally classic, recognizable hits they made. Kind of like Hall and Oates in a way.

I can easily see how music fans at the time would have underrated them. They almost released too much too fast but never had the kind of major "ALBUM" album that had become the in thing at that time.

I don't know who leveled that charge at Devo, but I don't think it was Marsh. He did call them "Meat Loaf for college kids," though, which is otm.

― Sun? Sun? It's your cousin, Marvin Ra (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, August 10, 2012 4:52 PM (48 seconds ago)

i'm trying to parse that. "meat loaf" = ironic joke rock? makes sense if that's the read.

also guys it's FOGERTY

― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, August 10, 2012 3:54 PM (1 hour ago)
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/fogarty.png

I don't know exactly how I'd describe CCR, but "earnest country-inflected rock" is not it. I think "rock" is the only part of that that comes close.

Not to go off topic, but "Meat Loaf for college kids" was Christgau:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=devo

Ah, indeed. I'll have to re-read the Marsh Devo writeup, but he did credit Christgau with that line, iirc.

Huh another completely terrible take by xgau expressed through a nonsensical one liner, whaddya know

CCR is to classic rock what Ramones are to punk rock.

Well, not really "classic rock" as a genre, as I see it. I'm not even sure that the local classic rock station where I live plays that much CCR. (Seems to me that I've heard them on oldies stations more over the years.) CCR might be to something what the Ramones are to punk rock but I'm not sure what that is. I get the idea that they're sort of archetypal, but it's not really to some identifiable, actual roots rock thing that you can put your finger on.

They're an archetypal 1970 pop band, basically.

"roots rock" comes pretty close to naming it. i suppose you could call it rock americana or rock-as-folk music. whatever unites bob seeger, X, green on red, etc. reminds me of that 80s beer ad with the long ryders, where one of them says, "i think rock & roll is folk music, cuz it's music for folks."

anyway, did CCR invent nostalgia for olde america in rock?