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John Fogerty rolls back the years to 1969

PREVIEW What: John Fogerty When: Tonight, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 6:30) Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St. Tickets: $20, $49.50, and $79.
John Fogerty.jpg
John Fogerty played Woodstock and enjoyed a string of hit albums and singles in 1969.

PREVIEW

What: John Fogerty
When: Tonight, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 6:30)
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
Tickets: $20, $49.50, and $79.50 by phone at 250-220-7777, in person at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office, or online at selectyourtickets.com

 

One of the biggest years in rock ’n’ roll history is a continual source of inspiration for John Fogerty.

The Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman has toured in recent years with a show centred on the events of 1969, his most prolific 12-month stretch as an artist. And Fogerty’s fans, who continue to come out in droves for his concerts, love him for it.

Fogerty, 71, will revisit 1969 tonight at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, the site of his 2014 show based on the same theme. He can be forgiven for relying on nostalgia, given his enduring popularity. Though his show two years ago marked his fourth local appearance in under a decade, it sold out and drew 6,283 fans.

The Californian’s output from 1969, when he was 24, is both world-beating and worth revisiting: an appearance at Woodstock, three Top 10 albums and four Top 5 singles — all written and produced by Fogerty.

His run began with Proud Mary, the first of five CCR singles to hit No. 2 in 1969.

“By the time I wrote Proud Mary, I had evolved, and something quite different started to happen,” Fogerty said last year during a rare interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

“I knew I had something I didn’t have before. I knew that’s where good stuff would be created, like Lennon/McCartney, Irving Berlin, Leiber and Stoller or today somebody like Bruce [Springsteen] or, of course, Bob Dylan. I knew I was inside that place, wherever that was, where those people created that stuff.”

Indeed he was. Proud Mary was the first in a remarkable succession of 1969 hits — Born on the Bayou, Bad Moon Rising, Lodi, Green River, Down on the Corner, Fortunate Son and Travelin’ Band — from three hit albums (Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys) that all came from Fogerty alone.

He discusses those and other career highlights in his 2015 memoir Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music. The Beverly Hills resident, who avoids press interviews, felt that the book would give him a chance to write at length about his life and career, which continues in Grammy Award-winning form today. There was plenty for Fogerty to write about, from the bitter breakup of CCR to his early struggles as a solo artist. He avoids dishing dirt, but sheds light on the split from his bandmates in CCR, one of whom was his brother Tom.

“The worst thing that ever happened to my band was the Beatles,” Fogerty wrote in the book, “because the guys in my band thought they could be the Beatles.”

CCR disbanded after 1972’s Mardi Gras, its first and only album to feature songwriting from someone other than Fogerty. He allowed others in the band to contribute ideas as a peace offering.

They were pushing for an equal-share partnership, but the critically savaged results were damning. The relationship got worse from there and CCR split into two factions — Fogerty versus everyone else — where it remains today.

“These guys had no clue about what was necessary,” Fogerty wrote in Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music. “A vision. That’s just the truth.”

After years of stop-start momentum as a solo artist, a fate made worse by lawsuits filed against him by his former record label and ex-bandmates, Fogerty found a groove on 1985’s Centerfield. He hasn’t looked back, having restored some lustre to the CCR name, along with his reputation as a pioneering rock ‘n’ roll songwriter.

Fogerty hit Las Vegas this year for an eight-show residency at the Venetian Theatre, in a show dubbed Peace, Love and Fogerty. Its focus? A single year, of course — one that changed not only Fogerty’s life, but the world of rock music around him.

mdevlin@timescolonist.com