DAVE'S DIARY - 18 JUNE 2013 - JOHN FOGERTY CD REVIEW
JOHN
FOGERTY
WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE (VANGUARD-SONY)
FOGERTY AND FOO FIGHTERS FIRE FIRST SALVO
"Some folks are born made to wave the flag/ they're red, white and blue/ and when the band plays, 'Hail to the Chief'/ they point the cannon right at you/ it ain't me, it ain't me/ I ain't no senator's son/ It ain't me, it ain't me/ I ain't no fortunate one." - Fortunate Son - John Fogerty.
John Fogerty is better qualified to write about the folly of war than most peers - he was drafted in 1965 and spent two years in active service in the Army.
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Unlike,
some country artists he didn't do his time in Vietnam jungle vines
and mines where death decimated the unluckiest draftees of the sixties. "Zanz can't dance but he'll steal your money" and Mr Greed were on his 1985 solo album Centrefield. |
Fogerty wrote
the songs during a protracted stoush with Zaentz who sued the Creedence
Clearwater Revival founder for $140 million.
The Californian singer won the battle and changed lyrics and title to
Vanz Kant Danz and re-joined Fantasy after the movie director sold his
interest in the company.
Fogerty saved his recent song Swamp Water as theme to the new Fox
TV series The Finder - and spent much of 2012 touring with his
crack band, including an unprecedented two-night-stand at New York City's
famed Beacon Theatre.
This time Fogerty enlisted The Foo Fighters to join him on his rebirth
that is every bit as relevant as 2004 album title track Déjà
vu All Over Again - a poignant parody of society's failure to learn
from its mistakes in modern made for TV terrorist two steps.
Unlike Bush bashing peers, he believes the 1968 Nixon election campaign
was more crucial.
"Day by day we count the dead and dying/ ship the bodies home while
the networks all keep score."
That was then and this is now.
ALMOST SATURDAY NIGHT ON A MYSTIC HIGHWAY
"All stars that I'm under/ know how I feel tonight/ all the miles I've been travelling/ heading back to the light." - Mystic Highway - John Fogerty.
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Ironically,
it was during Fogerty's uncivil war with Fantasy he wrote Almost Saturday
Night featuring expatriate Australasian star and guitarist du jour
Keith Urban who guested on stage recently with the Rolling Stones and
plays on the new Buddy Guy album.
"I originally worked on this song when I was still at Fantasy Records
after the Blue Ridge Rangers album," Fogerty says in his liner notes.
"The band had just split up and I realised I was under a horrible
contract and all my songs were lost to that contract. Somehow in the midst
of this dark time I wrote a very cheerful song."
That's the way it's delivered here with drummer Kenny Aronoff from the
Déjà vu All Over Again sessions and Greg Leisz on mandolin.
Fogerty thrives on mixing genres and generations throughout this riveting
rebirth of his glory days and his wide open window to the present and
future.
It's no surprise that he chose a predominance of country - not rock or
blues artists - to daub his timeless tableau.
Fogerty also passed the baton to sons Shane and Tyler for Lodi -
a fatalistic blues-rocker with slide guitars and a driving stomp - written
from his California childhood travels with his father.
It segues into new tune Mystic Highway - accompanied by a video
scheduled for Nu Country TV in August - another song about an "extended
family in constant motion along their journey of destiny."
But it was the flip side of fame prompted the title track penned when
Fogerty's ex-wife left him for a Sunday drive while he wrote songs.
"As the door closed I saw the phrase 'wrote a song for everyone and
I couldn't even talk to you.'"
But it's not an ex-wife but Miranda Lambert - singing spouse of Blake
Shelton - who elevates this with Texas twang in her strident vocal with
a little help from guitarist Tom Morello.
BAD MOON RISING ON A TRAIN OF FOOLS
"This
left the station/ quarter past midnight/ a hundred souls taking their
last ride/ each of them a traveller/ drifting through this life/ silent
shadows passing in the night/ ride, ride, ride, train of fools."
- Train Of Fools - John Fogerty.
Fogerty narrative talents extend to his extensive liner notes where he
details the embryo of Bad Moon Rising - the 1941 film The Devil
And Daniel Webster, replete with hurricanes and ruined crops.
"As the story goes the devil meets a man down on his luck and offers
to help him in exchange for his soul at the end of his life," Fogerty
wrote, "it's a deal you should never make but some do."
The sting is in the tail of Fogerty's tale - he recalls how he donated
the song's lyrics to his sons' LA school in 1999 for an auction and a
Vietnam veteran father confessed to him his battalion called themselves
the 'buffalo soldiers' and used the song as a precursor anthem for attacks
on Viet Cong in the jungle.
Now, with hurricanes and floods ravaging the Mid-west and south sand fires
in Colorado, the song is equally relevant in the hands of Georgian guitarist
and singer Zac Brown whose Australian concerts featured septuagenarian
Charlie Daniels anthem The Devil Went Down To Georgia.
And, to maximise impact, Fogerty used Zac's entire band and Texan Clint
Black on harmonica on a song that segues into another trip into the unknown
with My Morning Jacket on Long As I Can See The Light.
Beating the odds has long been a trump card in Fogerty's deck so it's
not surprising he recruited the much maligned Kid Rock for Born On
The Bayou - sound checked and suffering P.A. interuptus many moons
ago - and new tune Train Of Fools.
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The singer
revisits deja vu divorce on Some Day Never Comes as a father-son
duet with Dawes and drives fast in a clever car metaphor on Hot Rod
Heart with hotshot West Virginia born guitarist-vocalist chart-topper
Brad Paisley.
Fogerty also exercises his precipitation metaphors on the Woodstock inspired
R & B romp of Who'll Stop the Rain with Bob Seger.
And laid back Georgian Alan Jackson is a perfect partner for CCR-split
sourced sibling Have You Ever Seen The Rain as he provides divine
intervention and sunshine.
The singer's salient song sequencing finds him choosing his army discharge
song Proud Mary as the fitting finale for this joyous epistle.
And, with Fogerty's love for the mighty rivers of the Deep South and frequently
flooded city New Orleans his passengers Jennifer Hudson, Allan Toussaint
and Rebirth Brass Band become the hot gospel cogs driving the engine in
a flashback to the Ike and Tina Turner version.
Track Listing
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1. Fortunate Son (with Foo Fighters)
2. Almost Saturday Night (with Keith Urban)
3. Lodi (with Shane & Tyler Fogerty)
4. Mystic Highway
5. Wrote a Song for Everyone (with Miranda Lambert, feat. Tom Morello)
6. Bad Moon Rising (with Zac Brown Band)
7. Long As I Can See the Light (with My Morning Jacket)
8. Born on the Bayou (with Kid Rock)
9. Train of Fools
10. Someday Never Comes (with Dawes)
11. Who'll Stop the Rain (with Bob Seger)
12. Hot Rod Heart (with Brad Paisley)
13. Have You Ever Seen the Rain (with Alan Jackson)
14. Proud Mary (with Jennifer Hudson, feat. Allen Toussaint and the Rebirth
Brass Band.