LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Fantasy Records continues its massive Creedence Clearwater Revival reissue program with the May 26, 2009 release of Creedence Covers the Classics, a compilation of the band’s best cover tracks, plus a fully remastered version of The Concert, the band’s 1970 live album. Last year, marking Creedence’s 40th anniversary, Fantasy re-released the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame-inducted band’s first six studio albums including rare never-before-released bonus tracks.
Creedence Clearwater Revival had developed a vast arsenal of covers during a lengthy apprenticeship in the local Bay Area music scene (as Tommy Fogerty & the Blue Velvets and later as the Golliwogs) by the time they emerged on the national stage in 1968. As fans of the 1950s “Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” CCR hardly missed an opportunity to salute their musical heroes while making the songs their own. The Creedence Covers the Classics collection brings together for the first time these classic cover recordings.
Included are renditions of Dale Hawkins’ “Susie Q” (CCR’s very first hit single), Little Richard’s “Good Golly Miss Molly,” Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” Ricky Nelson’s “Hello Mary Lou,” Leadbelly’s “The Midnight Special” and “Cotton Fields,” Roy Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby,” Ray Charles’ “The Night Time Is the Right Time,” Wilson Pickett’s “Ninety-Nine and a Half,” Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me,” Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “My Baby Left Me” (made a hit by Elvis Presley) and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell On You.”
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s The Concert album was recorded January 31, 1970 at the Oakland Coliseum in the band’s indigenous East Bay. “I don’t know if I was there,” wrote the late Greg Shaw, editor of Bomp! magazine and founder of Bomp! Records in the liner notes, “but I remember a Coliseum show around that time, maybe a little later, when the vast stadium was packed with excited fans and I was able to witness Creedence at the top of their form . . .This record, which contains a full 50 minutes of music, is as close to the complete Creedence experience as it’s possible to come in this distant age.”
The album contains live renditions of 14 of the band’s pre-1970 tunes: “Born on the Bayou,” “Green River,” “Tombstone Shadow,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Travelin’ Band,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” “Commotion,” “Down on the Corner” and covers of Ray Charles’ “Night Time Is the Right Time” and Leadbelly’s “The Midnight Special.”
“This CD is a valuable time capsule,” writes Stanley Booth who also contributed liner notes to the project, “presenting one of the ‘60s’ finest bands doing what it did surpassingly well.”
On September 30, 2008, Fantasy Records reissued the band’s six individual LPs as expanded-edition CDs, marking the band’s 40th anniversary. The albums — Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country, Green River, Willy & the Poor Boys, Cosmo’s Factory and Pendulum, all originally released from 1968-70 — were digitally remastered and contained an array of rarities: B-sides, unreleased studio and live material.
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