Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Album Reviews # 43 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Hits Album # 2 Travelin' Band

'Take me to the hotel. Baggage gone, oh well...'

Clocks in at two minutes twenty four. Three seconds longer than Bad Moon Rising. Creedence songs don't outstay their welcome except when they do. For the most part they were at their very best when they kept it short. This was B-Side to Who'll Stop The Rain which reached Number 2 in the States in 1970. A tale of constant touring for which John Fogerty played many of the instruments including brass and piano.

This is the early blast of Rock and Roll reborn. The sound for the most part of  Fogerty paying full throated tribute to Little Richard and like many things during his career it turned round and bit him when the band was obliged to pay damages out of court to one of his record companies a couple of years later when they threatened a plagiarism lawsuit.

For me this seems somewhat unjust as Little Richard never sounded quite like this. A soundtrack to constant touring and the sheer euphoria that it must have been to experience being pretty much the biggest thing in America which they were at the time. The band sound like a freight train behind Fogerty. Creedence blew away their peers at moments like these.



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