Creedence Clearwater Revival, often referred to as simply Creedence or CCR, was an American rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The band consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed the roots rock, swamp rock, and blues rock genres. Despite their San Francisco Bay Area origins, they played in a Southern rock style, with lyrics about bayous, catfish, the Mississippi River, and other popular elements of Southern United States iconography, as well as political and socially-conscious lyrics about topics including the Vietnam War. The band performed at the 1969 Woodstock Festival in Upstate New York.
After four years of chart-topping success, the group disbanded acrimoniously in late 1972....Creedence Clearwater Revival's music is still a staple of U.S. radio airplay; the band has sold 26 million albums in the United States alone. Rolling Stone ranked the band 82nd on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. (Read more at Wikipedia)
Peel started playing Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1968, before the band's debut single and album had been issued in the UK. Their back-to-basics, rootsy rock style chimed with a move towards simpler music at the end of the 1960s and was very much to his taste. Creedence's music, particularly long, danceable tracks like "Keep On Chooglin'", was also played by Jeff Dexter on his live DJ gigs, contributing to Creedence's underground reputation. "Proud Mary", from their second LP, Bayou Country, made their name internationally and was a hit in the US and Europe before its belated release in the UK. On his 27 April 1969 show, Peel was disappointed that the music press did not acknowledge his role in discovering the group in the UK:
"They were apparently discovered a couple of months ago by Jonathan King which will come as a surprise to regular listeners to this programme who heard them over a year ago."
After that, they became one of the most commercially successful bands of their era and performed at the Royal Albert Hall in April 1970, when Peel and his mother saw them. On his 26 August 1987 show he mentioned that he was impressed with the group not performing any encores at the event. He also saw them in the following year and wrote in his Disc & Music Echo column of 9 October 1971:
"Early in the week I saw Creedence Clearwater etc. and thought they were efficient and quite exciting. John Fogerty played some fine guitar solos in the rock manner and they ran through the catalogue of their recent hits - there aren't that many bands who can do that these days. I doubt that I'd dash forth to see them again, though."[1]
