In honor of the 40th anniversary of their debut album, Fantasy Records is releasing the six studio albums of the band as a quartet. No word yet of their final album, Mardi Gras, which found lead guitarist John Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford as a trio after rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty quit.
John must have been on fire creatively because in March 1969, weeks after Bayou Country, they released “Bad Moon Rising” with “Lodi” on the flipside, two CCR classics with the former arguably being their definitive and most well-known song. In August of that same year, Green River was released. If Bayou County is where they found their distinctive sound, Green River is where they perfected it. The only flaw is its length, coming in at 28-plus minutes, but it’s a fair trade off for such a quick turnaround of such strong material.
A surefire way to get yourself back to the bayou is to travel down “Green River.” John’s swamp boogie guitar on the title track that opens the album lets you know your heading in the right direction to get “back down where cool water flows, yeah.” The reason the narrator needs to “remember things I love” is because many of the songs on the album are filled with gloom and doom and in his youth he was given sage advice from Old Cody Jr. that “if you get lost come on home to green river.”
One reason to feel lost is the “Commotion” of life. The band rips through this one at an up-tempo pace, reflecting the hectic nature of life as people are “hurryin' to get” where there going. However, a commotion can be raised by someone not even moving, such as those who “keep a-talkin', they don't say a word,” yet that doesn’t stop them as they “Jaw, jaw, jaw, jaw, jaw,” including those in the White House, one of John’s first songwriting slights at those in charge.
“Tombstone Shadow” is another spooky blues number in the vein of “Graveyard Train.” This time a gypsy man, “way down in san berdoo/… Said I got thirteen months of bad luck.” John’s guitar has a great tone that rings out. On the second bridge, there’s a fantastic, creepy-sounding guitar duet.
“Wrote A Song For Everyone” is a little bit country as John writes a song for those that need to be remembered: those in the welfare line, those goin’ down to war, those in jail fighting for what’s right. This is one of the many songs that show how the talented the rest of the band was as they are create music that matches whatever genre the song resembled.
“Bad Moon Rising” is about the end of the world as he knows it and the band sounds fine. Never has impending Armageddon sounded so good with John’s almost joyful delivery backed by a foot-tapping, hand-clapping beat. They might have the right idea. Shouldn’t we all be “quite prepared to die” since death is part of the price of admission in this crazy thing we call life? If you have to deal with earthquakes and lighting, hurricanes and floods, better to do it with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.
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