uReview: The CCR Discography
I gotta be honest. I grew up with a ton of Creedence, but I’m not exactly familiar with their LPs. My experience with the band comes largely thru massive classic rock radio exposure and the Chronicle I and II collections. Late last year Fantasy Records reissued CCR’s first six albums on CD and MP3, but I want to hear from you before I dive in:
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Q. Give us your low-down on CCR. What was your runner up album?
Written by Brendan | March 25th, 2009 | Comments (10)
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I voted for Willy & The Poor Boys. It’s the only one I like end to end. Lots of good tracks. I love their version of “Cotton Fields” and also “It Came Out Of The Sky.” Runner Up would be Cosmo’s Factory for “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” which is probably my favorite CCR song.
I vote for Willy and PBs as well. One my all time faves… one of the greatest Americana, roots rock or whatever you want to call it albums ever… it’s got a little bit of everything: blues, country, folk, swamp rock, soul…played exceptionally well – w/ lots of attitude……runner up would be Green River (just as solid and probably their darkest….) but all of the albums are worth getting… I can play tunes like “Bootleg” (bayou c.) over n over again w/out gettiing tired of em…
I love Creedence but for me they only ever made one album that was pure greatness from top to bottom and that is the first one. Their version of 99&½ is the best one I’ve heard and Walking on water is one of my all time fav. songs. Strangely enough I really love the Pendulum album too.
What, no respect for “Mardi Gras”? Just kidding (though I question the decision not to reissue it just for completeness sake). Cosmo’s and Willie are my #1 and #2, respectively, but frankly all are worthy of purchase. Having grown up with Chronicle and classic rock radio, I was surprised by how great the old standards sounded in their original context, and how many of CCR’s best songs were not the singles (“Effigy”, “Bootley”, “Ramble Tamble”, etc…).
a ccr record was the first I bought in my life. it was a double live-album and I was 11 then.
2 things I learned with this record
– live music can be much poorer than studio music
– american music might not be my cup of tea
here in frankfurt, germany, where I lived in that times (and now again) young people in the 70s got an overkill of american music, because of afn, the local soldier-station. for example punk never happened in frankfurt, because there were no britains but americans in frankfurt. when 18, every young man in frankfurt knows a lot about country, funk, soul, rnb and of course unbearable mainstream rock from usa. so ccr becomes a no go area and many people decided to hear cheap protest songs or get together creating electronic and techno and so on…but never ever listened to groups like ccr (and even not to jefferson airplane) again.
today, as a dying capitalism a last time tries to hide, but instead show his ugly face, it may be unfair having ignored groups like ccr. ok, they were mainstream, but if you listen to all these horrible copycats, radiostations play again and again and again…and commercials between again and again and again, then maybe even a boring old fart, who likes ccr would be kind of deliverance.
Trying to say which between Green River -> Cosmo’s is really splitting hairs. I’d say just start chronologically because the leap in quality from the first to second is pretty striking (to me at least) and they just sound so incredibly confident by Cosmo that it’s hard not to be floored. Does it get any better than Effigy?
My vote is for Green River but it’s a damn hard call between that and Willy. Together those albums have some of the finest pure, greasy, American rock ‘n’ ROLL that there ever has been. Like a can of PBR rolling around the truck bed.
COSMO’S – Run Through The Jungle yeah dont look back
I voted for that first album. Another one I like is Pendulum. This is gas station music to me. I used to work at a gas station, and they would have a small selection of CDs for sale. These CDs I used to play in a car stereo, under the desk, hooked up with the stereo system in the store. I remember they had Neil Young’s ‘Passionate’-album and Norwegian band Pussycats first album. Pretty OK stuff.
Bayou Country, by a mile. The weakest (!) track is Proud Mary, the hit single. Everything else simply smoulders. Born On The Bayou and Graveyard Train make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in the same way as the Stones’ Goin’ Home (from Aftermath) and Neil Young’s Down By The River (From Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere). Honest, raw guitar rock stretching out live in the studio. I may just have to write reviews of those three albums . . .