Levon was the most authentic person in any of these bands & garth hudson had the most authentic beard, so everyone vote for the band
― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 12 August 2012 17:53 (eleven years ago) link
One funny thing about Creedence that I just remembered is that I used to always see Cosmos Factory in the used bins and think it was some kind of dodgy compilation or weird italian pressing or something because of the goofy cover. Like my brain couldn't compute that that was the actual cover of their biggest album. I like it now though.
― wk, Sunday, 12 August 2012 18:00 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, they should have gone with the original concept
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/cosmo2.jpg
― contenderizer, Sunday, 12 August 2012 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
check out the sex face on this fogerty
― Death Grits (WmC), Sunday, 12 August 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
Electric Creedenceland
― Choogle Image Search (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, 12 August 2012 18:19 (eleven years ago) link
Someone's chooglin' John in that picture.
― EZ Snappin, Sunday, 12 August 2012 18:35 (eleven years ago) link
Someone needs to do a CCR compilation leaving out all the ubiquitous hits everyone knows and all the lousy cover tunes.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Monday, 13 August 2012 03:51 (eleven years ago) link
Here's a list with no hits, no covers (including bonus tracks, but no live stuff)
Creedence Clearwater RevivalThe Working ManGet Down WomanPortervilleGloomyWalking on the WaterCall it Pretending
Bayou CountryBootlegGraveyard TrainPenthouse PauperKeep On Chooglin'
Green RiverCommotionTombstone ShadowWrote a Song for EveryoneCross-Tie WalkerSinister PurposeBroken Spoke ShuffleGlory Be
Willy and the Poor BoysIt Came Out of the SkyPoorboy ShuffleFeelin' BlueDon't Look NowSide O' The RoadEffigy
Cosmo's FactoryRamble Tamble
PendulumPagan BabySailor's LamentChameleon(Wish I Could) HideawayBorn to MoveHey TonightIt's Just a ThoughtMolinaRude Awakening #2
Mardi GrasLookin' For A ReasonTake It Like a FriendNeed Someone to HoldTearin' Up the CountrySomeday Never ComesWhat Are You Gonna DoSail AwayDoor to DoorSweet Hitch-Hiker
The contrast between Cosmo's (all hits & covers) vs Pendulum (no covers and only one hit) is pretty funny.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 05:59 (eleven years ago) link
I really dig Porterville / Call it Pretending. Is the rest of the pre-creedence stuff worth hearing?
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 06:00 (eleven years ago) link
Hey Tonight wasn't a hit? Shoulda been. That's one of my favorite short CCR singles.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 13 August 2012 06:03 (eleven years ago) link
Oh maybe. It sounds familiar.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 06:13 (eleven years ago) link
Sweet Hitch-Hiker too. (It was a hit, but it's not one of my favorites)
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 13 August 2012 06:16 (eleven years ago) link
I guess it was included on TV's biggest selling album so who am I to argue?
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 06:45 (eleven years ago) link
Regarding the authenticity of Americana between these bands reminds me of the story of Robert Hunter's proudest moment as a lyricist: in the audience at a dead show during cumberland blues, he overheard someone loudly complaining about these rock bands making money off of old Appilacian folk songs.
― BrianB, Monday, 13 August 2012 13:10 (eleven years ago) link
I had heard that story as Hunter actually taking a trip to Western MD and playing the song for some old men there, one of whom said something to the effect of “that’s a great song, but I can’t imagine what the guy who wrote it must think of a band like the Grateful Dead playing it.”
― spanky hotel frogstrot (how's life), Monday, 13 August 2012 13:24 (eleven years ago) link
I'm not a big Deadhead, but I voted Dead vs. Yes and Rush, and my kneejerk reaction was do so here too, simply based on the breadth of their career output, and thinking of CCR mainly in terms of their great run of singles. But wk's list of CCR deep cuts is mindboggling. I love so many of those songs! It got me wondering what sort of similar list-paring could be done for the Dead, as they played so many of their best-known songs to death in concert over the years.
If you went into Deadbase or similar, and tossed out all the covers, plus every song that was played more than x amount of times, you'd be left with a CD-R of "Cream Puff War," "Pride Of Cucamonga," "My Brother Esau" and the like; maybe worth a cursory listen, but no comparison to the CCR one.
― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Monday, 13 August 2012 14:02 (eleven years ago) link
Pagan Baby
^^^choogles like a motherfucker
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 15:53 (eleven years ago) link
That doesn't make any sense though because none of those songs are ubiquitous and inescapable like CCR's hits. The only songs you would maybe have to delete are Truckin', Casey Jones, and Touch of Grey. A similar list of Dead songs minus hits and covers would be ridiculously long. Even if you just did their first seven albums I think it would be a much bigger, better, and more diverse list.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:21 (eleven years ago) link
And the Dead's covers are mostly of old traditional songs that aren't necessarily as well known. When I first listened to the Dead albums I didn't think "oh great a lame cover of New New Minglewood Blues-- SKIP" the same way that I did with CCR's covers of really well known pop songs.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:25 (eleven years ago) link
I dunno when I hear the Dead butchering Buck Owens I definitely think SKIP
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:29 (eleven years ago) link
where does that happen?
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:32 (eleven years ago) link
q for indie nerds, be honest: how many of you knew "walking on the water" from the richard hell & the voidoids cover?
― goole, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
Would like to hear that.
xp
― spanky hotel frogstrot (how's life), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
sorry was thinking of Merle Haggard
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link
where'd they do that?
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:39 (eleven years ago) link
Walking on the Water makes me thing "hey they sampled London Calling"
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:40 (eleven years ago) link
altho this claims they did do "Tiger by the Tail", "Sawmill" and "Slewfoot" don't think I ever actually heard those tho. I was thinking of "Mama Tried"
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:41 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUgYOGX8XOM
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:42 (eleven years ago) link
so some live shit right? I skip all of that as a matter of course. They had enough trouble singing in the studio, I don't need to hear their live wailing. And live albums in general suck outside of jazz.
for me this is GD/Anthem/Aoxo/Workinman/AmBeaut vs. the 7 CCR albums
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
"trouble singing" is putting it generously
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:45 (eleven years ago) link
Actually Jerry doesn't sound half bad in that video. They're no Everly Bros of course.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:49 (eleven years ago) link
wk, for sure the Dead's "hits" aren't as ubiquitous as CCR's, but there are way more warhorse Dead songs than the three you mention. "Me And My Uncle," "Sugar Magnolia" and "Playing In The Band" were evidently their three most played songs. They're no "Bad Moon Rising" in terms of every bar and VFW band covering them, or every radio listener knowing them, but in the Dead canon they're huge. Add "Uncle John's Band," "Friend Of The Devil," even "The Other One" they played over 500 times. I was just trying to get past the songs they played the most to try to find a seldom-played cut that hit me as hard as the first time I heard "Tombstone Shadow." Maybe "It Must Have Been The Roses," as I just came to that one rather recently.
― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Monday, 13 August 2012 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, I see what you mean I just think it's a totally different thing. The only people who know which songs they played 500 times (cause they've seen them live or listened to boots) are already fans. I'm coming to CCR from the point of view that I know all their hits, and I've skimmed their albums a few times but never been able to get into them because apart from the hits nothing really stands out to me.
So you're talking about a list for a Dead fan to make it feel like the first time again, but the CCR list is more to convert a CCR skeptic (which I still am).
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
If I had to trim their non-hits/non-covers to a set of A-list classic material it would be this
Walking on the WaterPenthouse Pauper ("If I was ballplayer/wouldn't play no second string" line has a special bitterness to it)Keep On Chooglin'Tombstone ShadowWrote a Song for EveryoneCross-Tie WalkerSinister PurposeDon't Look NowEffigyRamble TamblePagan Baby(Wish I Could) HideawayHey TonightRude Awakening #2 (the most psychedelic thing they ever did)Someday Never ComesSweet Hitch-Hiker
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 18:03 (eleven years ago) link
And maybe CCR played "Tombstone Shadow" at every gig, I have no idea. I honestly discovered it via Southern Culture on the Skids' cover.
― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Monday, 13 August 2012 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
be honest: how many of you knew "walking on the water" from the richard hell & the voidoids cover?*raises hand*
― He Wasn't Even The Best Drummer In The Rutles (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 13 August 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
wk, there are at least three songs left on your list that were hits - Hey Tonight, Sweet Hitch-Hiker and Someday Never Comes among them, plus several tracks that weren't released as singles but received heavy airplay - Ramble Tamble, for instance. And even some of what's left stands out - Walking On The Water (memorably covered by Richard Hell & the Voidoids) and the perennial favorite (Wish I Could) Hideaway. And even though the much-derided, end-of-the-road Mardi Gras features only three songs written / sung by John Fogerty, they're as good as anything he did before or since.
An amazing 51% of the 47 songs that John Fogerty wrote (or in one case, co-wrote) and sang for Creedence Clearwater Revival were either Top 40 hits somewhere in the world (20 of them!) or highly played FM radio hits (4 of them, which is probably an undercount on my part). In some cases, planned singles *weren't* released since the previous single was still riding high in the charts, theoretically robbing Fogerty of even more hits. And this doesn't include several more hits I'm not counting because they were covers! Something like 75% - 80% of these 47 songs are still well-remembered / played / covered today, which is pretty unusual since most big artists from that time period have a high proportion of "forgotten" hits.
Who matches this record? I don't think even the Beatles do (and their were *two* primary songwriters there, plus a few from George.) Maybe Dylan or the Velvet Underground, if one stretches the definition of hit to include songs frequently covered today. Fogerty's stuff still sounds great, fresh and exciting. Pretty freaking incredible, if you ask me. The sad thing is that among songwriters of his league almost no one was as tremendously robbed by their label as him.
― crustaceanrebel, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:26 (eleven years ago) link
Mo, these . . .
Long As I Can See The Light (double a-side single with Lookin' Out My Back Door - #2)Hey Tonight (double a-side single with Have You Ever Seen The Rain? - #8)Someday Never Comes (#25)Sweet Hitch-Hiker (#6)
. . . were all hits. Those are the US chart positions. All of them except "Someday Never Comes" still get radio play here on Austin's oldies station.
Mind-boggling, the greatness of even the "filler," isn't it?
― crustaceanrebel, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:30 (eleven years ago) link
for years i only knew "run through the jungle" as sung by lydia lunch
― fit and working again, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:35 (eleven years ago) link
HAHA listening to that Lydia cover as I type!
― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Monday, 13 August 2012 18:37 (eleven years ago) link
occurs to me that the dead were the ICP of their era
― contenderizer, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
Listening through shakey's list now and I think... this band is not for me. I just hear a huge gap in quality between their undeniable classics and the rest of the album tracks. He wrote these songs that have become massive standards, which the Grateful Dead obviously never did, and the Band has one or maybe two. But there's not a single album that I can sit all the way through. I'm not sure what it is.
As a pop songwriter, Fogerty is definitely up there with Lennon/McCartney, Dylan, Goffin/King, Smokey Robinson, Holland/Dozier/Holland, Bacharach/David etc. But as a rock band putting out albums at the peak of the album as a form, they don't really cut it for me.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:44 (eleven years ago) link
Mo, these . . . were all hits.
Yeah I know and I debated quibbling, but they were just in the original list posted and I was just c+ping
― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 13 August 2012 18:45 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, sorry. I know my list probably wasn't accurate. I just threw it together quickly based on the songs I've already heard a million times to try to see what I was missing. Hey Tonight is the only other one I recognize though.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:53 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, it's interesting that - aside maybe from Cosmo's Factory - no one really ever talks about CCR albums. And to be honest, a weak point for me is their tendency to stretch it out on a song or two past the 5- or 6-minute mark. But considering that they released tons of material in a short time, and didn't sink to the level of doing "novelty" tunes, and Fogerty wrote 80% of their material by himself, I can sort of forgive him. I think in Springsteen's speech inducting them into the RRHOF, he talked about how Fogerty just got in there, said what he had to say, and split. The sort of economy in CCR's singles doesn't make for compelling album listening, especially when "deep" album cuts were often 7 minutes long - it makes the albums feel disjointed somehow, despite the fact that the songs all have a similar basic feel. I don't think the gap in quality is as big as you do - plenty of non-hits could have been hits - but yeah, they weren't really an album band.
The opposite is true of the Band, who never had a big hit as such, but whose first couple of albums are pretty perfect. I always got the feeling that later albums by them were searching for a hit, which lowered their power.
― crustaceanrebel, Monday, 13 August 2012 18:59 (eleven years ago) link
wk, I'd be curious how, if you listened to "Hey Tonight," you would compare it to their hits. To me, it's as a piece with them (and it was a hit), but clearly it's not one of the commonly played ones today. I ask because I'd love to get a sense of whether it's potentially familiarity with their hits that makes the other stuff seem lesser. Not just to you, but to other people. Give it a spin and let us know.
― crustaceanrebel, Monday, 13 August 2012 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
xpostsAlso I didn't mean to make it sound like I care about "the album as a statement" or anything like that. I just care about hearing good songs I've never heard before and the more of them the better. When I started getting into the Dead, I just started buying their records from the beginning and the only songs I knew already were Casey Jones, Truckin, and Cream Puff War. And I basically like all of the material on those first 5 studio albums minus maybe a couple I skip on the first one.
I think the 16 tracks on WD/AB besides casey and truckin absolutely slay shakey's ccr list.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 19:04 (eleven years ago) link
Hey Tonight is great. Someday Never Comes and Sweet Hitchhiker are pretty lackluster. Basically I think the charts are OTM re: CCR.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 19:08 (eleven years ago) link
actually I take that back re: the charts now that I'm looking at the actual chart positions of their singles.
― wk, Monday, 13 August 2012 19:11 (eleven years ago) link
someday never comes always makes me sad
― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 13 August 2012 19:11 (eleven years ago) link