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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
The Bad Moon on the Rise Edition
00:59:53
Creedence Clearwater Revival was an eternal chart bridesmaid—a record number of No. 2’s—and the No. 1’s holding them back weren’t all classics
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- [00:00]
Chris Melanphy
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show. Fifty years ago this month, in February of 1969, a roots rock single broke into the top 10 on the charts. A song that's now so woven into the fabric of classic rock it's almost hard to believe it was ever a new hit. Only half a century ago, be Free.
- [00:52]
Guest or Co-host
To Keep on Burning Brow Keep on Burning.
- [01:05]
Chris Melanphy
It was the first top 10 for a four man band from California who you could have sworn were from bayou country. Indeed, the album that spawned this song, Proud Mary, was even called Bayou Country. But Credence Clearwater, Revival, a swamp rock band led by the Berkeley born El Cerrito raised singer songwriter John Fogarty, were in a way from everywhere and nowhere. Their sound encompassed rock, blues, country, folk, R and B and roots music. They were the sound of American pop at the twilight of the 1960s.
- [01:47]
Guest or Co-host
Rollin on the River.
- [01:53]
Chris Melanphy
By March of 69, Proud Mary would reach its Billboard Hot 100 peak of number two. That's an excellent performance for the first big hit by a still new rock band. But that chart position number two would prove to be a familiar one for Credence and a bit of a curse. From 1969 through 1971, CCR generated one of the most amazing streaks of classic pop hits ever generated by a rock and roll band, and none of them topped the Hot 100. In fact, five of these hits between March 1969 and October 1970 in a furious 20 month burst, got as high as the runner up position on the chart and no further. And these five number two hits were all two to three minute gems destined for the rock cannon. To this day, half a century later, CCR still holds this oddball Billboard chart feat the most number two hits, five by an act never to reach number one. And that's not even counting the hits of theirs during this amazing two year run that peaked on the chart at number three or lower. With so many Credence classics falling just shy of the top of the chart, you might reasonably ask what world beating singles prevented John Fogarty and the Boys from going the distance. What was at number one when all of these songs were stalling at number two? Well, it was the late 60s after all, widely regarded as a high watermark in rock history and indeed some pretty amazing singles were topping the charts, then.
- [04:14]
Guest or Co-host
I am everyday people.
- [04:22]
Chris Melanphy
But not every week. As has been chronicled by pop historians and such modern TV shows as Mad Men, the top of the Hot 100 during the late 60s was not always a parade of awesome. There were number one hits that were catchy, to be sure, but very much of their time, And then there were chart toppers that barely even sounded like they came from the 60s. The number ones that blocked Credence Clearwater Revival are a fascinating window into late 60s pop, and it's also a reminder that topping the charts is a week by week game dependent on timing, competition and luck. Even when John Fogarty was writing some of his most irresistible melodies, His band had the misfortune to go toe to toe with some even bigger pop juggernauts, both iconic figures and passing fads. Today on Hit Parade, we'll consider the one of a kind career of ccr, an American musical phenomenon that burned brightly and briefly, leaving an indelible mark on rock history even when their songs couldn't go the last mile on America's flagship chart. And that is where your Hit Parade marches today, the week ending March 8, 1969, when Credence Clearwater Revival scored its first of five number two hits on Billboard's Hot 100 with the classic Proud Mary. You might well regard this episode as a sequel to our earlier show, the Silver Medalists Edition, about historic number two hits. On that episode, I told the stories of three runner up smashes by the Miracles, the Go Go's and Kelly Clarkson that cast a long shadow on pop history, arguably as long or longer than the number one hits that held them. In this episode, I'm going to do a similar spin through a string of number twos and the number ones that blocked them, except this set of runners up were all recorded by the same band. For the record, over the course of the Hot 100's 60 year existence, several artists have scored as many or more number two hits as Credence Clearwater Revival did. In the 80s and 90s, for example, Madonna racked up six number two hits, And in the 1970s the Carpenters matched Credence's mark with five number twos. The difference between these superstars and Credence Clearwater, Revival, however, was that when these other acts scored their number two hits, they had also scored number ones. Whether it was Madonna. Or the Carpenters, What makes Credence unique is they only scored number two singles. Moreover, the speed with which they racked up these number twos was remarkable, a furiously creative period for the Group's leader and hit songwriter, John Fogarty. Their success at their peak in 1969 and 1970 seemed relentless, almost an overnight success. But by then, the band that started as the Blue Velvets in El Cerrito, California, had actually been knocking around for almost a decade. John Fogarty, Doug Clifford and Stu Cook met in junior high school and began jamming by high school. By 1959, they had gotten tight enough as a combo that a singer from Northern California named James Powell hired the Blue Velvets to back him on a recording session for his new single, Heavenly Angel.
- [09:37]
Guest or Co-host
You are my heart Desire.
- [09:44]
Chris Melanphy
The doo wop track Beverly angel was a minor regional hit, but it got Fogarty and his bandmates on a record for the first time. That's John, still only 14 years old, playing stand up bass on the track, and his older brother Tom Fogarty can be heard on backing vocals. What is prescient about this early single, even though though the band is buried in the background, is how it reflected the mix of influences John Fogarty and his mates had absorbed growing up in El Cerrito. The track was a pure R and B record sung by a black vocalist, and the stand up bass John is playing he had borrowed from a local country musician. Coming just a couple of years after the breakthrough of rock and roll, Fogarty's band would synthesize an array of genres. In his autobiography, Fortunate Son, Fogarty speaks rapturously about the music he digested in the 50s, the 45 RPM singles he bought, and the hits he heard across the radio dial. From Bill Haley to Hank Williams, Ray charles to the kingston trio.
- [11:06]
Guest or Co-host
Hang down your head, tom dooley.
- [11:11]
Chris Melanphy
Buddy holly to little richard, Johnny Cash to Ricky Nelson.
- [11:21]
Guest or Co-host
I'm a traveling man, made a lot of stops all over the world.
- [11:29]
Chris Melanphy
As well as a host of blues men. Fogarty later claimed he picked up his odd phrasings on Proud Mary words like Toyman and Boynan from the vocals of Howlin Wolf. But John Fogarty was not the frontman of his band. At first that role went to his brother Tom, who was singing lead for the band when in 1960, they signed to Fantasy Records, a jazz label that was crossing over to rock. By then, the British Invasion had made landfall in America. The band was renamed the Golliwogs by Fantasy, whose executives thought the seemingly exotic, frankly offensive name might be more marketable. And the rechristened Golliwogs began playing British Invasion style singles meant to jump on the Beatles and Stones bandwagon. The Golliwogs released singles for just under four years. Meanwhile, John Fogarty and Doug Clifford enrolled as military reservists in a desperate attempt to avoid the Vietnam draft. By the time Fogarty received his army discharge in 1967, rock and roll, especially rock in the Bay Area, had undergone a sea change, becoming increasingly psychedelic, sprawling and jamming.
- [13:15]
Guest or Co-host
Every day I try so hard to know your mind and find out what's inside you Time goes on.
- [13:26]
Chris Melanphy
The Golliwogs were not immune to these changes. In the three plus years since they had signed to Fantasy Records, Tom Fogarty had gradually relinquished the Golliwog's lead vocals to his little brother, and John had taken on the lion's share of the songwriting. The last single issued in 1967 under the Gollywogs name called Porterville, featured featured John prominently and showed how their sound had evolved. While the band had gotten more psychedelic and harder rocking. They were not exactly a summer of love jam band. This was the great irony of John Fogarty, a Bay Area musician who reached his musical prime in the late 60s and mostly disdained hippie rock. In his autobiography, Fogarty calls himself quote a square who only occasionally dabbled in inebriance, largely found the Grateful Dead overlong and boring, and still loved the two to three minute pop single. However, Fogarty also had a keen sense of what might finally get his band over on the radio. In 1968, at the behest of Fantasy Records, he renamed the band Credence Clearwater, Revival, a largely nonsensical name made by smashing together words from a TV ad and a local friend of the band's named Credence. CCR's breakthrough hit in 1968 would be an old school rockabilly song disguised as a sprawling jam. It was so long it had to be spread across both sides of a 45. Suzy Q had been a top five 30 hit for rockabilly singer guitarist Dale Hawkins in 1957. A decade later, Credence's version slowed the song down to a bluesier tempo and more than doubled its length to eight and a half minutes. In his autobiography, Fogarty admits that turning the concise Hawkins hit into what he called gut bucket country blues was his sly attempt to adapt to the heady new sound on the FM dial. It worked. Divided in half for release as a single, the four minute A side of Suzy Q got Credence on the national airwaves for the first time in the summer of 68 and onto the Hot 100, where it did stunningly well for a debut single reaching number 11 by the fall that same summer, the renamed Credence Clearwater Revival issued their self titled debut album, and the only songs not written entirely by John Fogarty were covers. Fantasy thought this might be the band's ticket, and they followed up Susie Q with their cover of the Screamin Jay Hawkins classic I put a spell on you.
- [17:02]
Guest or Co-host
Because you're mine.
- [17:05]
Chris Melanphy
This second single reached number 58 in the final weeks of the year, indicating that Credence had a solid base of support, but that issuing covers was not going to make them permanent hitmakers after I put a spell on you. For the rest of their time as an active band, Credence Clearwater Revival would never again issue a single not written by John Fogarty. And as 1968 turned to 1969, literally in the first few days of the new year, their amazing hit streak kicked off with a song depicting a mythic American vision from John Fogarty's prodigious imagination. To that point, John Fogarty had never been to the American south, and he had never seen, let alone hitched a ride on a riverboat called the Proud Mary. Quote. I didn't really know what those two words meant, but I liked how they sounded together. Fogarty would later tell jazz and pop critic Mark Myers. The song had the most motion of a boat. I had always loved Mark Twain's writing and the music of Stephen Foster, so I wrote lyrics about a riverboat. The line rollin on the river was influenced by a movie I once saw about two riverboats racing. I finished most of it in just two hours. Then I opened my notebook for a song title and there was Proud Mary. This imagined pastoral American south was a recurring theme in Fogarty's writing. For example, the flip side of the Proud Mary single was Born on the Bayou, a swamp rock homage to the Mississippi Delta, again a place Fogarty had never been. Born on the Bayou helped establish Credence a foursome of, again native Californians as the foremost swamp rockers of their day. It led off their early 69 album Bayou Country. Fogarty and Credence would wind up releasing three three albums of new material in 1969 alone, and other than a stray cover or two on each LP, all of the material, including all of the singles, was entirely written by John Fogarty. Released as a single in the first two weeks of 1969, Proud Mary reached the chart's top 10 within a month. Already, 69 was shaping up as a strong year for pop singles. The Hot 100 in the early weeks of the year was topped by Marvin Gaye's I Heard it through the Grapevine, then Tommy James and the Shondells, Crimson and Clover. And by the time Proud Mary was scaling the top 10, the chart was dominated by yet another classic, Sly and the Family Stone. Like Credence Clearwater Revival hailed from the Bay Area and they were the premier multi genre, multi ethnic psychedelic rock act of their day. In 1968 and 1969, Sly and the Family Stone were in the middle of a streak of acclaimed singles and albums like Dance to the Music and Stand. The lead single from the Stand album, Everyday People was their biggest hit yet, becoming their first number one in February 1969. Everyday people commanded the chart for four weeks and it was still on top in early March. The weak Proud Mary rose to number two. If Credence was going to lose out in a chart competition involving their first blockbuster hit, it would be fair to succumb to Sly Stone. But Everyday People fell out of the number one spot the next week, and the song that took over was not Proud Mary. Let's be fair to Tommy Rowe in the 60s, he was a serious hit maker. Dizzy was Tommy Rowe's fifth top 10 hit out of eight top 40 hits he had scored since 1962. It wasn't even his last. In 1970, he would score one more top 10 smash with the goofy title Jam Up Jelly Tight. Dizzy was Rowe's biggest hit ever, a four week number one in 1969 that turned late 60s hippie rock into bubblegum pop. The song's cleverest gimmick, it changed keys about a dozen times in under three minutes. On the charts. In March of 69, Dizzy leapt over Proud Mary into the number one spot, guaranteeing that Credence's biggest ever hit would never get past number two. Proud Mary spent a total of three weeks in the Hot 100's runner up position, one week stuck behind Sly Stone and two weeks behind Tommy Rowe. As a consolation for this narrow chart loss, Proud Mary's status as a legendary song was affirmed almost immediately. The first hit cover by soul icon Solomon Burke debuted on the Hot 100 just weeks after Credence's original version began falling down the chart. Burke's Proud Mary, which led off with a spoken word section, peaked just outside the top 40 in the spring of 1969. It would not be the biggest cover of Proud Mary, nor the last. As for Credence, they were already moving on. The same week Burke's cover debuted, CCR's next single was already on the Hot 100, the leadoff track to their next album an immediate follow up to the Bayou country lp, and this single too sounded like a smash. Credence's second straight top 10 hit was bad Moon Rising, the song about a bad moon on the rise and not for all you Monda Green fans out there, directions to a bathroom on the right. John Fogarty wrote Bad Moon Rising as a gentle satire of the hippie generation's fascination with horoscopes and astrology, and in less than two and a half minutes he packed in three verses and choruses and a guitar solo. Bad Moon Rising reached the top 10 in June of 1969, at a moment when the chart was dominated by the Beatles smash Get Back. Within three weeks Bad Moon Rising had reached number two, matching the peak of Proud Mary. By then the Beatles had departed the number one spot, but the song holding CCR in the runner up slot was not a rock song. It was not only considerably milder than Get Back, it made Tommy Rose dizzy sound like a wild hippie freakout by comparison. Now let's give Henry Mancini his due. One of the most decorated film and television composers of all time, writer of Moon river and the Pink Panther theme, winner of final four Oscars and 20 Grammy awards, and the freak chart topper of the summer of 1969 with his orchestration of Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet. One of his few recordings that he didn't write Mancini's Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet was a cover of Nino Rota's signature melody from the 1968 Franco Zephyro film of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy. It was so mild, Mancini himself put it on the B side of his single the Windmills of youf Mind. Not thinking it terribly commercial, but piles of requests from listeners to pop radio stations turned Mancini's B side into an A side, then a smash, and it ejected the B side Beatles from number one. The same week Bad Moon Rising reached number two. It was a stunning upset in a summer of peak rock by a song countless couples would dance to at their weddings in the next year. How Do I Know? Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet was the 1970 wedding song of Frank and Francesca Mollanf. Credence Clearwater Revival were outmaneuvered on the Hot 100 again, but of course John Fogarty had more arrows in his quiver. Bad Moon Rising was the lead off single to Credence's third album and second of 1969 called Green River. When that album arrived in the summer, its title track was tapped as CCR's next single, Green River. Incidentally, the favorite Credence song of your humble hit parade host was not only John Fogarty's most irresistible riff rocker, it was also, surprisingly, one of his most personal songs. A memoir in under three minutes, Green river tells of a vacation spot where the Fogartys would spend summer days in their childhood. The lyric up at Cody's camp I spent my days commemorated an actual campsite in the area around Pootah Creek in Winters, California. Propelled by a blistering swamp rock rift, Green river made the creak of John Fogarty's youth sound like it belonged in the Deep South. But unlike his imaginary ferryboat queen or his vision of bayou country on Green River, John Fogarty was quite literally writing what he knew. Green river was another fast breaking hot 100 smash released in July 1969. By mid August, the single was already in the top 10. In only its fourth week on the Hot 100, it kept inching up the top 10 for another month and a half, reaching number two by late September, CCR's most familiar chart position. And there Green river would peak. Because in the dog days of summer 1969, bubblegum pop had struck again. And this time it wasn't from a journeyman confectioner like Tommy Rowe. Credence was stopped by a song from a group that didn't even exist.
- [29:51]
Guest or Co-host
You are my candy girl and you got me wanting.
- [29:56]
Chris Melanphy
The Archies were a fictional garage rock combo. As comic book characters, the high schoolers of the Archie universe, including Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica, date all the way back to the Second World War. But in 1968 and 68 they were also the stars of the Archie Show, a CBS Saturday morning TV series. The Archies, the band made up of real life session musicians, was created to promote the TV cartoon. And like the monkeys before them, the Archies scored real hits on the actual Billboard charts. Co written by future 70s hitmaker Andy Kim. Sugar Sugar sold more than 3 million copies in 1969 alone and commanded the Hot 100. For four weeks, it was Billboard's number one song of the year. During the second of those four weeks, the Archies blocked Credence Clearwater Revival from rising to the top with Green River. By now, Credence were such a big chart presence that even their B sides were becoming hits in their own right. John Fogarty's policy of placing quality songs like Born on the Bayou and Lodi on the flips of their 45s, not throwaway tracks, was starting to pay off. By late summer, the B side of Green River, a pounding rocker called Commotion had garnered enough airplay on its own to reach the top 40, peaking at number 30 in mid September. This brings up an important chart technicality to this point in Hot 100 history. Billboard chart policy stated that the two sides of any single would chart in separate positions driven by their radio airplay. But a change in that policy in late 1969 would help make Credence's flip side tracks even bigger. The biggest beneficiary would be a no. 3 hit, which, even though we are focusing in this episode on number Two's I would be remiss if I didn't mention both sides are classics and one side is Credence's most critically accomplished acclaimed recording. John Fogarty may not have been a hippie, but Fortunate Son showed he was not shy about raising his voice in the protest. Ranked among the greatest songs in rock history, Fortunate Son was a lament on behalf of the average young American who could not pull strings of privilege to avoid the draft for Vietnam. I ain't no senator's son I ain't no millionaire's son I ain't no fortunate one. According to Fogarty, the song quote speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself. To this day, Fortunate Son makes regular appearances in movies, TV shows and video games depicting the 60s, the military or the working class, from Forrest Gump to Call of Duty. In late September 1969, Credence Clearwater Revival issued Fortunate Son on a 45 paired with the flip side down on the Corner. Both tracks previewed the band's forthcoming album Willie and the Poor Boys. A fun loving, danceable roots rock track. Down on the Corner could not have been much different from its brother single.
- [34:10]
Guest or Co-host
Out in the Street. Playing a phone for the Plan Bringing it up Happy Feet.
- [34:18]
Chris Melanphy
In essence, Credence were picking up a trick from the Beatles who since 1965 had issued so called double A side singles such as We Can Work it out backed with Day Tripper or hey Joo, backed with Rubber Revolution. These pairs of vinyl flip sides would be dropped by a band at the top of their game and allowed to jockey for radio airplay and chart position. The marketplace would settle which was the bigger hit. But that all changed the last week of November 1969 when Billboard revised its policy and required flip sides of singles to share a single Hot 100 position. This move by Billboard immediately boosted several two sided hits including the Beatles, Come Together and Something, which immediately rose to number one. It also boosted Credence's latest twofer through mid November. Fortunate Son was the bigger of the two so called A Sides, but it had only gotten as high as number 14. When the new Hot 100 policy took effect and both sides of the CCR single joined forces down on the Corner and Fortunate Son shot into the top 10, leaping to number nine before finally peaking at number three just before Christmas. It was Credence Clearwater Revival's fourth single to make the top three in 1969, and it capped the band's most successful year. John Fogarty would later point out that in 1969 credence were, quote, the biggest band in the world except for the Beatles, and he may have been too modest. Several sources claimed that CCR in that one year actually outsold the Fab Four. As great as Credence's success was, however, a Hot 100 number one still eluded them. Their three no. 2 singles in 1969 had been bested by bubblegum smashes by Tommy Rowe and the Archies and an unlikely orchestral hit by Henry Mancini. In their own specific ways, each of these number ones could be considered flukes by artists who were not regular chart topper. Even Tommy Rowe was not that big a hitmaker. But heading into 1970, the change in Billboard's B sides policy seemed ideal for Credence, who routinely placed top shelf material on both sides of their 45s. If anyone was going to score a two sided number one smash in the year to come, surely it would be ccr. Those pairs of great John Fogarty tracks would be unstoppable by anything except the very biggest songs by the very biggest superstars. You might guess where this frustrating story for Fogarty and CCR is headed next. At least I promise you the music will be catchy. Released in January 1970, Travelin Band was both an old thing and a new thing for Creedence Clearwater. Revival. It was, in a way, old because the song was deliberately written and recorded to resemble a classic rock and roll rave up from the 50s. John Fogarty's shouting vocal was so close to that of his idol Little Richard that the publisher of Richard's Good Golly Miss Molly, which Travel and Band most closely resembled, later sued for plagiarism in a 1972 case that was settled out of court. But travel in band was also a new thing because nothing in Credence's prior catalog resembled this. Even after their prior covers of actual 50s singles, some of which were hits like Susie Q and I Put A Spell on youn, CCR had never attempted to recreate an old sound on a new song. From our 2000s vantage point, you might say. Travel and Band was the blurred lines of 1970, a single openly attempting to mimic the style and sound of a specific hit from a prior decade, but not its exact melody. Whether it was worthy of a lawsuit was open for debate. It was still remarkable how quickly Credence were issuing new material. The Willie and The poor boys LP from late 69 was only 2 months old and already they were issuing a new single not from that album. Barely over two minutes. Travel and Band was also CCR's shortest single to date. But the flip side of Travelin Band could not have been more different, longer statelier and more melancholy, it became one of Fogarty's most cherished anthems. Who'll Stop the Rain was John Fogerty's elegy for his generation. If it was a protest song, it was much more indirect than Fortunate Son, its lyrics resigned and somber. Fogarty wrote who'll Stop the rain after CCR's performance at Woodstock, and while the lyrics heaped scorn upon Washington and the Vietnam conflict, Fogarty's refrain suggested that no flower power movement would fix what ailed America at the twilight of the 60s. Fogarty wanted the song to be, in his words, symbolic, not political, and the result was timeless. The twin forces of Travelin Band and who'll Stop the Rain debuted together on Billboard's Hot 100 at the end of January 1970, and they proceeded to pole vault up the chart. The two sided hit was in the top ten in just three weeks and it was parked at number two by the first week of March. It would take a mighty hit indeed to keep Credence from topping the chart. Now something monumental. Wouldn't you know it?
- [41:52]
Guest or Co-host
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down like a bridge.
- [42:17]
Chris Melanphy
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel picked the winter of 1970 to issue their most colossal hit of all time, the soaring gospel inflected Bridge Over Troubled Water. If who'll Stop the Rain was a populist elegy, Bridge was all that and more. The top song of the year, six weeks at number one, the eventual record of the year Grammy winner. Even the combined force of two massive John Fogarty songs couldn't top Paul Simon's all time standard.
- [42:56]
Guest or Co-host
I'll take your piece.
- [43:04]
Chris Melanphy
Travelin Band and who'll Stop the Rain collectively peaked in March 1970 at, you guessed it, number two. As spring turned into summer, both of Credence's latest tracks would finally be collected on a CCR studio album, the chart topping Cosmo's Factory half of the album's tracks wound up as singles, most of them top 10 hits. Two more wound up on another 45 in the spring. Another up tempo Fogarty cut up around the Bend, Backed with perhaps their swampiest swamp rock track ever, Run through the Jungle. That two sided hit peaked at number four four in May. Finally, for their summer jam, Credence went with Fogarty's daydreamiest song ever, a country line dance crossed with a children's ditty called Lookin Out My Back Door. Like the Beatles Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds or Peter Paul and Mary's Puff the Magic Dragon, Lookin Out My Back Door aroused listener suspicion that it was a clandestine drug anthem. Fogarty insisted otherwise, claiming he wrote it for his three year old son. And anyway, if it was a stoner ditty, it was an awfully peppy fluttery one. On the B side. Once again offering the strongest possible contrast, Credence placed one more laconic Fogarty anthem, a New Orleans flavored soul ballad called Long As I Can See the Light.
- [45:15]
Guest or Co-host
Don't have to worry Long As I See the Last.
- [45:25]
Chris Melanphy
Lookin Out My Back Door, backed with Long As I Can See the Light, was yet another potent two sided Credence Clearwater Revival hit yet again. It scaled the charts quickly, reaching the top 10 in just a month. By October 1970, Credence was back on their old stomping grounds, entering the top five, then the top three. By now in late 1970, the radio show American Top 40 had debuted, meaning for the first time ever, Casey Kasem could count down a CCR hit. Still at number three where it was last week, Creedence Clearwater Revival, undoubtedly the most successful group In America today, 12.
- [46:12]
Guest or Co-host
Consecutive gold records, this is one of them.
- [46:16]
Chris Melanphy
But would Casey count down a CCR number one as lookin out my back door climbed to number two the next week? If any At40 listeners were avid chart watchers, they must have wondered what force of nature could stop Credence this time. What river deep, valley low or mountain high? If you need me, call me.
- [46:45]
Guest or Co-host
No.
- [46:46]
Chris Melanphy
Matter where you are no matter how.
- [46:49]
Guest or Co-host
Far Just call my name.
- [46:54]
Chris Melanphy
Perhaps no debut song in rock or pop history has come freighted with more expectation than the first post Supremes solo single by Ms. Diana Ross. Her remake of Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell's Ain't no Mountain High Enough was a radical reimagining by songwriters Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, with Ross speaking more of the lyrics than she sang. An array of talents joined forces to make this majestic single a smash from Ashford and Simpson to Motown chief Berry Gordy to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It was probably a foregone conclusion that Ross's Ain't no Mountain High Enough would take over the top of the Hot 100, which it did for three weeks in the fall of 1970.
- [47:53]
Guest or Co-host
Nothing can keep me, Keep me from you.
- [48:00]
Chris Melanphy
One thing was now certain. In the end, it was Credence Clearwater Revival's destiny never to reach number one on America's flagship pop chart. Lookin Out My Back Door, backed with Long As I Can See the Light, was their last single to contend seriously for number one, their fifth number two hit in just over a year and a half. Burned out from the relentless activity and the tension within the band arising from John Fogarty's command of their fortunes, CCR lasted only two more years, generating only a couple more hits before their 1972 breakup. Their classic 19701971 single, the number eight hit have youe Ever Seen the Rain? Reads in hindsight as a requiem for the band itself. In this furious two year fusillade of hit making, CCR had established themselves as the premier US Rock group of their moment and John Fogarty as the most versatile American rock songwriter of his generation. And that was evident even before the group broke up. Within months of their run of classic singles, covers of Credence's hits began appearing across genres. R and B versions of Bad Moon Rising, rock and country versions of who'll Stop the Rain, even a live Elvis Presley version of Proud Mary.
- [49:45]
Guest or Co-host
Keep on Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, Rolling.
- [49:52]
Chris Melanphy
And then, of course, that signature Credence hit received its most immortal cover of.
- [49:58]
Guest or Co-host
All, Working for and I never lost one minute of sleep and I was worried about the way the thing might have been.
- [50:15]
Chris Melanphy
Keep on Turning Ike and Tina Turner first began covering Proud Mary on the road when the song was less than a year old. They emulated the spoken word intro of Solomon Burke's name 1969 cover. But thanks to Tina's sultry voice, they made their intro slower and sexier. She explained in no uncertain terms why the Ike and Tina Turner review felt it necessary to perform the song both nice and easy and nice and. In the innovative rearrangement developed by their drummer, Soco Richardson, Ike and Tina let the song build for more than a minute before turning it into a rave up, Capturing their arrangement for posterity. Ike and Tina went into the studio just days after performing Proud Mary in a celebrated appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Released as a single in late 1970, Ike and Tina's proud Mary cracked the Hot 100 in January 1971 and rose to number four by March. It peaked two years to the week after Credence Clearwater Revival had reached number two with their original version. Decades later, when John Fogarty was fighting Fantasy Records to retain the copyrights to his catalog and refusing to play his old Credence hits live, his fellow rock legends told him he'd better start playing Proud Mary again, lest it go down permanently in history as an Ike and Tina Turner song. In the decades since the band's demise, the story of both Credence Clearwater Revival and John Fogarty has taken many winding back roads. It would be beyond the scope of this podcast episode to detail his bitter battles with both his former bandmates and Fantasy Records president Saul Zaentz. The band and Fogarty fought for years over the rights to perform under the Credence name. In a controversial move, Rhythm Section, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford eventually toured as Credence Clearwater Revisited. In 1993, when Credence Clearwater Revival was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in, by the way, their very first year of eligibility. And sadly, three years after Tom Fogarty's death, John Fogarty refused to perform with Cook and Clifford, and the tension at the podium was palpable.
- [53:53]
John Fogerty
I'd also like to thank my former bandmates Doug and Stu and Tom. We've disagreed a lot over the years, but there was a time when we made really great music together, and I think that's actually the whole reason, that's the real deal, why we're here at all. So thank you, guys.
- [54:13]
Chris Melanphy
Most infamously, and in retrospect, hilariously, Saul Zaentz even sued John Fogarty for plagiarizing himself. In the 1980s, at the height of Fogarty's acrimony with Fantasy and Zaentz over the rights to his song catalog, Zaentz claimed that Fogarty had copied one of his own hits. Zaentz's novel theory was that Fogarty's 1985 top 10 solo hit, the Old man down the Road, the Old Man Is down around was too similar To Credence Clearwater Revival's 1970 top five hit run through the Jungle, a song Fogarty wrote but which Zaentz still owned.
- [55:00]
Guest or Co-host
Better Run through the Jones, Better Run through the Chong.
- [55:07]
Chris Melanphy
The case was ultimately dismissed. Fogarty, by the mid-80s, was enjoying a career renaissance with his 1985 album Center Field. It even topped the Billboard album chart just a few months shy of Fogarty's 40. As good as this number one album felt a Billboard no. 1 single eluded Fogarty for the duration of his career. Credence Clearwater Revival's strange record as the king of the no. 2 hits persists to this day. Fortunately, John Fogarty has long since reclaimed his recorded legacy. In the mid 2000s, Saul Zaentz sold Fantasy Records to the Concord Music Group. In a gesture of peace and goodwill, the new parent company reverted the rights to Credence's catalog back to its primary writer. Fogarty's stellar roster of 50 year old hits are now regular features of his live performances, and he tours to this day. And how does John feel about his band's quirky Billboard chart record? Fogarty rarely addresses it directly, but in interviews he does often point out how many number two hits he has. In perhaps his most direct comment for the Billboard book of Number one albums, Fogarty told writer Craig Rosen, in the back of my mind I knew the game is to try to be number one and to try to be as popular as you can be. With his musical legacy both secure and unimpeachable, John Fogarty doesn't need the sympathies of data obsessed chart nerds like me. And anyway, if it's any consolation, Credence Clearwater Revival's weird Billboard chart record is not only unique, it's pretty much limited to one music magazine in the United States. I almost forgot to mention, in the summer of 1969, over on the other side of the Atlantic, Bad Moon Rising actually topped the United Kingdom's official charts company chart. So to this day, when John Fogarty and his band play live in England, as they have at the country's enormous Glastonbury Festival, I see the Bad Moon horizon. They are playing a country where Credence Clearwater Revival had a number one single. Does John Fogarty think about this when he's on stage in front of tens of thousands of screaming Brits? Probably not, but it just might put a spring in his step that he's playing in a place where for once, a good moon is on the rise.
- [58:29]
Guest or Co-host
I love it. Coming soon.
- [58:34]
Chris Melanphy
I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. My producer is Chris Barube. The managing producer of Slate Podcasts is June Thomas. Our senior producer is TJ Raphael, and Gabriel Roth is the editorial director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com you can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Gabfest feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the hit parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Malanthik.
- [59:19]
Guest or Co-host
Hope you die. Looks like we're in for Nancy. It.