805. Creedence Clearwater Revival--Cosmo's Factory (1970; #1) (6)

805. Creedence Clearwater Revival--Cosmo's Factory (1970; #1) (6)

1. Ramble Tamble (?) (2)
2. Before You Accuse Me (?) (3+)
3. Travelin' Band (6)
4. Ooby Dooby (?) (2)
5. Lookin' Out My Back Door (8)
6. Run Through the Jungle (5)
7. Up Around the Bend (5)
8. My Baby Left Me (?) (5)
9. Who'll Stop the Rain? (7+)
10. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (9)
11. Long As I Can See the Light (2)

REVIEW: I tend to remember the good stuff and forget about the lousy tracks, and thus I thought I might have higher than a 7 on my hands here, with three superlative tracks (Grapevine, Who'll Stop the Rain, Looking Out My Back Door) but they're mixed in with some stinkers (Long As I Can See the Light, Ooby Dooby) and a couple of near-misses (Up Around the Bend, Run Through the Jungle). I give it a 6.

ED'S TAKE:

805. Creedence Clearwater Revival--Cosmo's Factory (1970; #1) (2)

1. Ramble Tamble (9) (I keep thinking I underrated this one)
2. Before You Accuse Me (10) A great cover. Little things slay me. Like at a line in the verse, he accentuates each guitar stroke. Brilliant.
3. Travelin' Band (10) I thought I'd gotten a bit sick of it.....NOT!
4. Ooby Dooby (9). Ok, his vocals aren't as memorable as Orbison's but the mere fact he'd chose an early Sun/Orbison semi-hit is great.
5. Lookin' Out My Back Door (10)
6. Run Through the Jungle (10)
7. Up Around the Bend (10) Love THAT RIFF and John's vocal on this
9. Who'll Stop the Rain? (9)
10. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (10) Can they pull off 11 minutes on this classic. YES! They did it with Susie Q (to my mind) and they do it here. Is it as GOOD as Gaye's. Surely better than Gladys' because it has the paranoia in tact.
11. Long As I Can See the Light (10) An absolutely wonderful vocal performance. He milks the notes.

OVERALL RATING: 10!!

DISCUSSION: Recently, I saw, on tv, Fogerty in concert. Wow! His voice hadn't aged a bit. And whoever was begin him instrumentally didn't miss a beat. What can I say? I loved CCR which is mostly loving John Fogerty. His voice, his guitar his compostional abilities, his sense of band dynamics, etc. His albums, mostly, were collections of singles, even if they weren't ever released as singles. Other than the Beatles, he exemplfies the notion of how saying "commercial" doesn't have to be a bad thing.....that somehow the "real music" had to be somehow compromised to sell records. This is powerful stuff and yet universal enough to be embraced by people with different tastes in music. I applaud John, especially after seeing that recent performance. Although he's gone thru trauma with the breakup of CCR which included a break with his own brother over Tom's siding with their ex-manager over royalty issues, etc. he seems to have survived with his talent entact. Up to Tom's ultimate death of AIDS (due to blood he received due to TB treatment), Tom and John were not on speaking terms.

I keep thinking of the years of waste of his talent. (He was actually sued at one time by Fantasy for writing a song that was supposedly a "copy" of an earlier song HE wrote. He won the suit. )