Bay Guardians

Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bayou Country
Green River
Willy and the Poor Boys
Cosmo's Factory
Pendulum



Creedence Clearwater Revival got their start in the late-’60s San Francisco ballroom scene, where they fit in about as well as a DEA agent. Their peers were jam-dazed smoke heads with soggy rhythm sections; Creedence knocked out hard-driving bayou bubblegum and hippie guitar choogle with Beatlesque economy. Singer-guitarist John Fogerty was a long-haired Army reservist who copped the voice of a Southern working-class dog to yap at the bad moon rising over Nixon’s America. Some songwriters struggle to find their target audience. Fogerty summed his up on Green River: “I wrote a song for everyone.”

Creedence had played together since they were kids, and on 1968’s self-titled debut and on Bayou Country they sound like a bar band learning to make records. Bassist Stu Cook and drummer Dou  Clifford walk the beat with zen proficiency as Fogerty stretches his Howlin’ Wolf yowl over his rangy guitar peals and brother Tom Fogerty’s swamp churn. John finds his voice on Green River: He’s a broke-down everyman yanked by forces he can’t understand—“I hear the voice of rage and ruin,” he sings on “Bad Moon Rising.” Only the moonshine fantasy of the title song’s “barefoot girl dancing in the moonlight” keeps him keeping on. Willy and the Poor Boys is their loosest and most class-conscious record. They take shots at Nixon’s psycho VP, Spiro Agnew, and Hollywood elites in the blazing “It Came Out of the Sky,” cover Lead Belly’s sharecropper sing-along “Cotton Fields” and shake out the angries on the anti-war, pro-soldier “Fortunate Son.”

Cosmo’s Factory tops off an astonishing run of five records in less than two years. It opens with a herculean guitar explosion, “Ramble Tamble,” proceeds apace to the murky Vietnam freak-out “Run Through the Jungle,” the acid trip hoedown “Lookin’ Out My Door” and the rare un-annoying rock-star complaint, “Travelin’ Band.” More laid back, adding keyboards and horns, Pendulum is a bit of an experimental afterthought, though “Pagan Baby” is a majestic, nasty jam.

The original records were short, even by ’60s standards (live versions and practice workouts add bonus choogle). But Creedence covered mile after mile of twisty, haunted American backroads.

DOWNLOAD “Ramble Tamble,” “Green River,” “Pagan Baby”