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Creedence Clearwater Revival Photos

"Creedence Clearwater Revival" opens with the band's first single, a powerful rendition of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You", followed by the Fogerty original "The Working Man", and a tough eight-minute take on Dale Hawkins' "Suzie Q".

CCR also covers the Steve Cropper-Wilson Pickett classic "Ninety-Nine And A Half (won't do)", and John Fogerty plays some of the greatest blues guitar of his career on the highly underrated gem "Get Down Woman", one of the few real blues songs Fogerty has written. The opening twelve-bar solo is one of the greatest I've ever heard laid down by a white guitar player, and the simple but highly effective 24-bar solo between the second and the third verse smoulders as well.

And then there's "Porterville", a raw, menacing rock song with great hooks and a powerful lead vocal by Fogerty, and the funky blues-rock of "Gloomy" (with some weird backward guitars).

The album closes with the only Creedence song credited to Tom Fogerty, "Walk On The Water", which begins well, before fading out with a somewhat tedious, directionless jam session.

But it takes more than a couple of minutes of awkward jamming to ruin an otherwise fine rock n' roll record.
Creedence's sound on this their first album is lean and muscular, dominated by John Fogerty's less-is-more lead guitar and the busy drumming of Doug Clifford. It may be slightly more primitive and not quite as original as their later records, but it towers above the rock n' roll of its time.


POWERFUL "Debut"   February 19, 2000
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

John Fogerty has a voice that's unique: powerful, raw, almost scary, and unforgettable. He'd been making records since 1959 with his band The Blue Velvets--which had its name changed against their will by the record company to The Golliwogs (! ). But several years and singles without success later, they realized something needed to be done. John took over singing lead from his brother Tom and, in the spirit of the times, renamed themselves CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL. For a band with a "psychedelic era"-style moniker, they sure sounded more BLUESY than most of their contemporaries. "CCR" opens with a downright spooky version of Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You", and the aura, style & mood of the album continued from there! Other highlights include "Suzie Q" (at 8:30 the single was split between 2 sides!); "Ninety-Nine And A Half" (the similarity of the opening bit to The Blues Brothers' "Groove Me" no doubt due to it being co-written by Steve Cropper-- I'm also reminded of some early Steve Miller tunes); "Get Down Woman" (see early Fleetwood Mac for more in this style); "Porterville" (really bouncy, this had earlier been a single before the band's name-change); "Gloomy" (starts out slow but builds to a tremendous guitar-jam); and "Walk On The Water" (a spooky march-like song, the only one in CCR's 7 albums co-written by Tom Fogerty). CCR didn't go over big on first release-- but THESE guys, especially John, were just WARMING UP! Like some others, I started out with a "hits" collection, but decided I needed MORE. This album is the perfect place to start!


CCR!!!!!!!!!!!   October 6, 2000
 3 out of 17 found this review helpful

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL KICKS MAJOR URANUS OKAY I HAVE VOL 1 VOL 2 AND I ONLY BOUGHT THIS FOR 3 SONGS I DON'T HAVE I AM WATING FOR THEIR B O X S E T TO COME OUT -HELLO- WHEN IS IT COMING OUT MAN THIS IS TORTURE IT BETTER COME OUT SOON BUT ANYWAYS THIS CD IS GREAT A MUST OWN CCR ROCKS.......


I swear I'll never leave my home again.   June 18, 2007
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This was the debut album by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It established their highly original sound, which was a lot different than any of the other bands that came out of the San Francisco scene (like CCR did). While they did have their sound down, John Fogerty's songwriting wasn't quite as good as it would later be. It's notable that the two chart singles from the album, "Suzie Q" and "I Put a Spell On You" are covers of songs from the '50s (by two guys named Hawkins who were of no relation to each other). The other cover song on the album was the more recent "Ninety-Nine and a Half" by Wilson Pickett. John Fogerty's original songs are good, but he got ever better as he went along. The best original song on the album, in my opinion, is "Walk on the Water", which Tom Fogerty co-wrote with John. This song actually dates from the pre-Creedence days, when the band was known as the Golliwogs. This is a very good album by CCR, but the best was yet to come.


Su disco menos "Creedence"   January 9, 2004
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

Muchos dicen que los primeros discos son los mejores. No en el caso de los grupos de la primera mitad de los 60, eso esta claro, pero la afirmacion se cumple en un buena cantidad de ejemplos. El debut discografico de Creedence es su album mas sicodélico, con mayor influencia blues, con mayores dosis de exhibicion por parte de John Fogerty y su guitarra, y por sobre todo todo el menos representativo de su trayectoria.

Es clara la influencia de San Francisco en el sonido del grupo, desde la obligada portada de la época (con unos Fogerty de irreconocible apariencia) hasta cierta acidez en la guiatarra, sobre todo en la espectacular Gloomy, un tema inexplicablemente desconocido que resalta ademas por sus marcados cambios de ritmo. Quizas demasiado avanzado para los Creedence maniacos. El blues mas ortodoxo pero no necesariamente aburrido se refleja en The Working Man y Get Down Woman, por su parte Walking on the Water destaca por sus efectos, algo impensado en los Creedence posteriores.

En cuanto a los covers, Ninety-Nine and a Half es bueno, pero no se compara con la demoledora interpretacion de I Put a Spell on You, donde una vez mas Fogerty demuestra lo buen guitarrista que es. Al igual que en la extensa Suzie Q, con una segunda parte instrumental en el tono del sonido San Francisco. Definitivamente hay mas que explorar del grupo aparte de las antologias y recopilaciones, y en este caso lo mejor seria empezar por el primero.