Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival is the debut studio album by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, released in July 1968, by Fantasy in the US. Featuring the band's first hit single, "Susie Q", which reached number 11 in the US charts, it was recorded shortly after the band changed its name from the Golliwogs and began developing a signature swamp rock sound. Background While "Suzie Q" proved to be a hit, the band had played for years as the Golliwogs in the early 1960s, releasing numerous singles before achieving success in the pop world. In 1967, Saul Zaentz bought Fantasy Records and offered the band a chance to record a full-length album on the condition that they change their name. Having never liked 'the Golliwogs', in part because of the racial charge of the name, the four readily agreed, coming up with Creedence Clearwater Revival. In Hank Bordowitz's book Bad Moon Rising: The Unauthorized History of Creedence Clearwater Revival, bassist Stu Cook is quoted, "Fogerty, Cook, Clifford and Fogerty signed a publishing agreement with one of Fantasy's companies that gave up rights to copyright ownership...Lennon and McCartney never owned the copyrights to their compositions, either. When you're on the bottom, you make the best deal you can." John Fogerty took charge of the group artistically, writing all of the band's fourteen hit records and assuming the roles of singer, guitarist, producer and arranger of nearly everything that appeared on Creedence's seven studio albums. Composition "Porterville", which was the last single released by the band under the name the Golliwogs in November 1967, was included on the band's debut album and revealed singer/guitarist John Fogerty's nascent songwriting talents. The song was a breakthrough of sorts for Fogerty, who stated to Tom Pinnock of Uncut in 2012, "It's semi-autobiographical; I touch on my father, but it's a flight of fantasy, too. And I knew when I was doing it, 'Man, I'm on to something here.' Everything changed after that. I gave up trying to write sappy love songs about stuff I didn't know anything about, and I started inventing stories." The album also includes the only co-write between John and his brother Tom Fogerty (who had been the original lead singer in the group) to appear on a Creedence album: "Walk on the Water". The song had already been released in 1966 under the Golliwogs name.