{"id":1476,"date":"2010-09-12T18:07:19","date_gmt":"2010-09-13T01:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2010-09-12T18:10:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T01:10:21","slug":"john-fogerty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2010\/09\/john-fogerty\/","title":{"rendered":"John Fogerty"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Fogerty<\/h1>\n

The legendary rocker returns to his childhood influences<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When Creedence Clearwater Revival split in 1973, lead singer and songwriter John Fogerty was determined that his first solo album would succeed or fail on its own merits rather than his famous name. So he invented the Blue Ridge Rangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a personal, ethical, moral issue,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to trade on that popularity. It\u2019s probably suicide for a career, but I felt very strongly about not calling myself\u00a0 \u2018John \u201cCreedence\u201d Fogerty\u2019 or something like that. I created this fictitious band.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Ridge Rangers<\/em> album found Fogerty exploring traditional country music\u2014a passion since childhood. \u201cIt was a time to reveal my influences,\u201d says the San Francisco native. \u201cWhat I presented was a balance of all the wonderful things that influenced me, that made me the person I was in 1973. I was still a very young man when I had this huge career with Creedence Clearwater Revival and made my mark on rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. It seemed like the perfect time to go into the world that was so precious to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

His most recent album finds him revisiting that place after more than three decades away. While the first Blue Ridge Rangers album featured Fogerty playing all the instruments, on The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again<\/em> he leads a stellar band of top-shelf acoustic players through a lively set of country covers. Fogerty has also just released a live DVD, Comin\u2019 Down the Road<\/em>, and he\u2019s at work writing songs for a new album of original material.<\/p>\n

We spoke with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer about his evolution as a guitarist, his return to the Blue Ridge Rangers and the ups and downs of being a one-man band.<\/p>\n

How did you first hear country music? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As a child, it just filtered in through the air. When I was young we had a little show in the Bay Area called The Hoffman Hayride<\/em>. It was something that my parents watched as soon as we got a television, and I really enjoyed that. It was live, and people were spontaneous, and of course they played country music. We also got the Grand\u00a0Ole Opry on TV when I was a kid. As a very little boy, I certainly was watching all the cowboy bands\u2014Roy Rogers and Sons of the Pioneers and all that. They were a big influence on me.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why did you decide to play all the instruments yourself on the first <\/strong>Blue Ridge Rangers album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I discovered I was under this horrendous contract to Fantasy Records. Even though the band had broken up, I still owed them an enormous, unfair amount of product. So I decided to be a one-man band. I can\u2019t answer fully what spasm of mental cruelty made me do that. It\u2019s just too bizarre to me now. Let\u2019s just say that I certainly was not completely healthy mentally. I don\u2019t mean that I was running around like a psycho, but there was some obvious injury to my mental state. And that\u2019s how it came out. I said, \u201cWell, OK, I\u2019ll be a one-man band. And I\u2019ll be anonymous!\u201d (laughs<\/em>) It meant I had a lot of healing to do but I didn\u2019t know any of that then. It\u2019s hard to do a one-man band, man. There\u2019s a lot of focus there. It\u2019s like time-lapse photography watching a rose bloom all day long. And when the album was done I was having a meeting with one of the henchmen of Fantasy. The guy let me know I had this big obligation of albums I had to give him, and he said, \u201cWell, we\u2019re not going to count this Blue Ridge Rangers album as part of your obligation.\u201d My jaw dropped. I said, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d He said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s country, and that\u2019s not what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given all that, it\u2019s interesting that <\/strong>you continued with the one-man band approach on the next two albums, John Fogerty<\/em> and Centerfield<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might say I fell into purgatory at that point. I was also still in this contract, so I kept working at that method while I was trying to figure out some legal way out of that purgatory. I called it a dungeon, really\u2014it had me chained to a wall. Finally, when Centerfield <\/em>was realized in 1985, I figured that\u2019s as good as it\u2019s ever going to be using that method. (laughs<\/em>) The album went to No. 1, and to me that was the vindication. I unlocked the\u00a0door and said, \u201cThat\u2019s it, I\u2019m not doing it like\u00a0that anymore.\u201d And that\u2019s a doggone good thing. From then on I started working with real people and getting out in public. It still took a little while but once I started touring in 1997 I joined the real world. I finally started having what you\u2019d call a normal career.<\/p>\n

What prompted the return to the <\/strong>Blue Ridge Rangers now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In all those 30-something years, there wasn\u2019t a month that went by that I didn\u2019t think about the Blue Ridge Rangers. I was going to do it someday. I collected songs from time to time. Sometimes I\u2019d even make a list, but this was in the age before computers so it wasn\u2019t permanent. I\u2019d put the list somewhere in a drawer and three years later I\u2019d think, \u201cGee, where\u2019d I put that list?\u201d (laughs<\/em>) Then [in August 2008] my wife says, \u201cYou know the Blue Ridge Rangers album you did? It\u2019d be great if you did another one of those.\u201d I was dumbfounded. It was like it\u2019s a Saturday morning and your wife walks up to you with all your fishing gear, lays it in your arms and says, \u201cHoney, why don\u2019t you take a few days and go fishing?\u201d (laughs<\/em>) I was so surprised, and I jumped at it. I got serious about songs and who I\u2019d like to have on the record and all that.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that you spent much of the last few years working on improving as a guitarist. What inspired you to do that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At about 14 I told myself, \u201cI\u2019m gonna grow up and be a really good guitar player like Chet Atkins.\u201d You might say that all my life Chet was way, way up there at the top of the mountain, the embodiment of what you could do if you practiced hard enough. Then somewhere in the \u201990s I got bit by the Dobro. Bear with me here. All roads Dobro lead to Jerry Douglas, and Jerry Douglas is now my favorite musician of all time. He\u2019s at the top of my list of everyone, including\u00a0Elvis Presley or James Burton or Otis Redding. Jerry Douglas is the man, in my heart. I was listening to a lot of his records just loving his great music. Then a little molecule of that memory became full recall in my brain: the 14-year-old making that promise and thinking of Chet Atkins. I had the emotion the way some people do under hypnosis, suddenly they\u2019re there in that moment. All these years had gone by, and I hadn\u2019t done it. I was about 48, and had the choice right then to wave it off or say, \u201cMan, you\u2019d better get busy.\u201d That\u2019s when I decided I needed to pursue my dream. This was about \u201992. I\u00a0became demonic. I started practicing Dobro\u00a0and finger-style slide, and that evolved into my\u00a0Tele playing, my finger-style guitar playing,\u00a0 trying to play with a pick the way the great\u00a0guys do, flat-picking. It took a long, long, long, long time. But I told myself, \u201cIt\u2019s OK. Practice everything, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d I started practicing scales, I started practicing rolls, and even though it was horrible in the present, in my mind I was that 14-year-old kid again and I could forgive myself. When you start that process, you sit there feeling pretty embarrassed that anybody can hear you. But I finally knew what the mission was. It took about 15 years, but now I\u2019m comfortable. (laughs<\/em>) I have loved being around people who can play, and being able to answer when it\u2019s my turn and play something worthwhile. At the end of a take, Buddy Miller will say,\u00a0\u201cWell, I didn\u2019t hurt myself too much.\u201d He\u2019s so self-deprecating and humble about\u00a0his own ability, and of course he\u2019s one of the most amazing musicians on this planet\u2014but he always acts as if it\u2019s some sort of an accident. (laughs<\/em>) I hope to keep that state of mind in my own playing and continue\u00a0in a frame of humility. I\u2019ve been aiming\u00a0at this all my life.\u00a0 It\u2019s late coming to me\u2014I did the hard work as an adult. So I realize what it took to do it, and that makes me more appreciative. It\u2019s not that long ago that I was awful and I couldn\u2019t do it. That\u2019s still a fairly recent memory. So now I\u2019m just happy that\u00a0I can sit in with guys that can really play\u00a0and, like Buddy says, not hurt myself too bad.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your goal for the Blue <\/strong>Ridge Rangers record?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d love for it to sell 10 million copies and be on the top of the pop music charts like Beyonc\u00e9 or Justin Timberlake or somebody. (laughs<\/em>) My publicist would say, \u201cJohn,\u00a0don\u2019t admit that it\u2019s probably not going\u00a0to do that.\u201d They want you to put a smiley\u00a0face on everything. Honestly, the first goal\u00a0has been met: It\u2019s really good, and I love to\u00a0listen to it. It\u2019s music that resonates with me,\u00a0and it rings true. I feel very comfortable\u00a0about that.<\/p>\n

By Chris Neal<\/p>\n

Jan\/Feb 2010 Issue of M Music & Musicians<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Fogerty The legendary rocker returns to his childhood influences When Creedence Clearwater Revival split in 1973, lead singer and songwriter John Fogerty was determined that his first solo album would succeed or fail on its own merits rather than his famous name. So he invented the Blue Ridge Rangers. \u201cIt was a personal, ethical, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[1014,1018,963,1016,1013,32,735,1015,1017],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}