Bayou Country (album)
Bayou Country | ||||
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Hollywood, California[2] | ||||
Genre | ||||
Length | 33:48 | |||
Label | Fantasy | |||
Producer | John Fogerty | |||
Creedence Clearwater Revival chronology | ||||
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Singles from Bayou Country | ||||
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Bayou Country is the second studio album by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, released by Fantasy Records on January 15, 1969,[7] and was the first of three albums CCR released in that year.[1] Bayou Country reached number 7 on the Billboard 200 chart and produced the band's first No. 2 hit single, "Proud Mary".
Background
After ten years of struggling as the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs, singer/guitarist John Fogerty, his brother guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford scored a No. 11 hit single with "Susie Q" in June 1968 under the name Creedence Clearwater Revival. Their self-titled album peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard albums chart.
Despite their new-found success, however, seeds of discontent among the four members had already been planted due to John Fogerty assuming control of the band at just about every level. "There was a point at which we had done the first album. Everybody had listened to my advice. I don't think anybody thought too much about it," Fogerty recalled to Michael Goldberg of Rolling Stone in 1993. "But in making the second album, Bayou Country, we had a real confrontation. Everybody wanted to sing, write, make up their own arrangements, whatever, right? This was after ten years of struggling. Now we had the spotlight. Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame. 'Susie Q' was as big as we'd ever seen. Of course, it really wasn't that big...I didn't want to go back to the carwash."
In 2007, the singer elaborated to Joshua Klein of Pitchfork, "I determined, we're on the tiniest record label in the world, there's no money behind us, we don't have a manager, there's no publicist. We basically had none of the usual star-making machinery, so I said to myself I'm just going to have to do it with the music...Basically I wanted to do what the Beatles had done. I sensed that I just had to do it myself."
Composition
Bayou Country contains what is arguably John Fogerty's most heralded composition, "
I would sit in my little apartment - which was very sparse - and stare at the wall. That's how I wrote. I would stare at it all night. There was nothing hanging on the wall, because I didn't have any money for paintings. It was just a beige wall. It was a blank slate, a blank canvas. But it was also exciting. I could go anywhere and do anything because I was a writer. I was conjuring that place deep in my soul that was me.
The swampy album opener "Born on the Bayou" was conceived in the same setting, with Fogerty explaining to Lynne Margolis of American Songwriter in 2013:
And it’s the middle of the night, I’m looking at my blank wall and basically going into another dimension — whatever you do when you’re kind of meditating — and that whole sound, that ringing, the way my amp sounded was takin’ me in there, and right at that moment, I don’t know if I’d written it first on a piece of paper, but it collided in my brain with the phrase, born on the bayou... And I pulled everything I knew about it, which wasn’t much because I didn’t live there. It was all through media. I loved an old movie called Swamp Fever...every other bit of southern bayou information that had entered my imagination from the time I was born, it all sort of collided in that meditation about that song. And I knew that that sound and that story went together. I can’t tell you why.
In 1970, Fogerty told Pop Chronicles, "'Born on the Bayou' was vaguely like 'Porterville,' about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the
Some of the other Creedence members have taken exception to the notion that Fogerty was the sole creative force in the band, with Doug Clifford telling Gary James of classicbands.com, "We all jammed every day when we weren't on the road and actually when we were on the road. We'd play acoustically at night. Three to four hours every night we would work the songs out or songs would come out of that song pool. The rest of us didn't get any credit for anything that came out of it. That's okay. I'm not crying over spilled milk, but when you really look at how prolific John was in the 3½ years that we had our success and the major drought he's had as a solo artist, I think it adds a little more credence...to what we contributed to the band." The atmosphere behind the scenes was indeed worsening; in a 2012 article with Uncut's Tom Pinnock, Fogerty recalled, "We went into RCA in Hollywood, Studio A, to record Bayou Country in October. We had the music for “Proud Mary” recorded, and I knew what I wanted the backgrounds to sound like. I showed the other guys how to sing the backgrounds, having remembered what we'd sounded like on “Porterville”, which was very ragged, not melodious...And I heard our tape back, and I just went, “Nahhh, that’s not gonna work.” So we had a big fight over that...We literally coulda broke up right there."
In addition to the Fogerty originals, Bayou Country also features a version of
Reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [14] |
Rolling Stone (reissue) | [15] |
In an early review, Rolling Stone thought that the album suffered from a major fault of inconsistency. "The good cuts are very good; but the bad ones just don't make it," it said. The review was positive on the title track "Born on the Bayou" and "Proud Mary", but thought many of the other tracks lacked originality. Overall it considered the material in the album "not always strong, but Creedence Clearwater Revival plays with enough gusto to overcome this problem."[16] On the reissue of this album on its 40th-anniversary in 2008, the album was given a score of 3.5 stars out of 5.[17]
On AllMusic the album received 4.5 stars (out of 5), with Stephen Thomas Erlewine stating: "Opening slowly with the dark, swampy "Born on the Bayou", Bayou Country reveals an assured Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that has found its voice between their first and second album. It's not just that "Born on the Bayou" announces that CCR has discovered its sound—it reveals the extent of John Fogerty's myth-making."[13]
The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[18]
The album was first certified Gold by the
Track listing
All tracks are written by John Fogerty, except where noted
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Born on the Bayou" | 5:16 |
2. | "Bootleg" | 3:03 |
3. | "Graveyard Train" | 8:37 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Good Golly, Miss Molly" | Robert Blackwell, John Marascalco | 2:44 |
2. | "Penthouse Pauper" | 3:39 | |
3. | "Proud Mary" | 3:09 | |
4. | "Keep On Chooglin'" | 7:43 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
8. | "Bootleg" (alternate take) | 5:48 |
9. | "Born on the Bayou" (live at Royal Albert Hall in London, September 28, 1971) | 4:48 |
10. | "Proud Mary" (live in Stockholm, September 21, 1971) | 2:51 |
11. | "Crazy Otto" (live recording by KSAN at the Fillmore, San Francisco, March 14, 1969) | 8:48 |
Personnel
- John Fogerty – lead guitar, lead vocals, background vocals, harmonica, piano, percussion
- Tom Fogerty – backing vocals, rhythm guitar (all but 9, 10)
- Stu Cook – bass guitar
- Doug Clifford – drums
- John Fogerty – producer, arranger
- Chris Clough – compilation producer
- George Horn – remastering
- Basul Parik – cover art
- Hank McGill – engineer
- Joel Selvin – liner notes
Charts
Chart (1969–1970) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[23] | 14 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[24] | 33 |
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[25] | 93 |
UK Albums (OCC)[26] | 62 |
US Billboard 200[27] | 7 |
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)[28] | 41 |
Certifications
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA)[19] | 2× Platinum | 2,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Release history
Region | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
---|---|---|---|---|
North America | January 1969 | Fantasy | LP | 8387 |
United Kingdom | July 1969 | Liberty | LP | LBS 83261 |
Germany | 1969 | Bellaphon | LP | BLPS 19002 |
United Kingdom | March 1973 | Fantasy | LP | FT 507 |
North America | 1983 | Fantasy | LP | ORC-4513 |
United Kingdom | July 1984 | Fantasy | LP | FAS LP 5003 |
Cassette
|
FAS K 5003 | |||
United Kingdom | August 1987 | Fantasy | LP | FACE 502 |
Cassette | FACC 502 | |||
CD | CDEF 502 | |||
North America | 1988 | Fantasy | Cassette | 54513 |
CD | FCD-4513-2 | |||
North America | June 10, 2008 | Fantasy | expanded CD | FAN-30877-02 |
References
- ^ Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. USA: Fantasy Records. 1991. FCD-CCR2-2.)
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link - ^ a b Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country [Expanded Reissue] (PDF) (CD liner). Creedence Clearwater Revival. United States: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 21, 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-7575-3379-2. Archivedfrom the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
- Music Radar.
All three of 1969's Bayou Country, Green River and Willy And The Poor Boys are vital additions to the blues rock canon.
- ^ Caligiuri, Jim (December 19, 2008). "Review: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Music". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-306-84670-0.
- ^ "RIAA".
- ^ John Fogerty interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1970)
- ^ Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country [Expanded Reissue] (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 21, 2011.
- ^ Michael Goldberg (1993). Jann S. Wenner (ed.). "Fortunate Son: John Fogerty - The 1993 Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone. United States. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2010.
- ^ Finding Fogerty: Interdisciplinary Readings of John Fogerty and Creedence ... - Google Books
- ^ Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 54 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: Getting back to rock's funky, essential essence. [Part 3]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
- ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Review "Bayou Country"". AllMusic. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
- ^ Rezos, Ray (March 2, 1973). "Creedence Clearwater Revival Bayou Country Album Review". Rolling Stone. San Francisco. Archived from the original on November 9, 2015. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
- ^ Ray Rezos (March 2, 1973). "Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 20, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
- ^ Barry Waters (October 2, 2008). "Creedence Clearwater Revival Bayou Country (Reissue) Album Review". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 8, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
- ISBN 0-7893-1371-5.
- ^ a b "American album certifications – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bayou Country". Recording Industry Association of America.
- ^ a b "Bayou Country > Credits". AllMusic Guide. Retrieved October 8, 2010.
- ISBN 978-1-55652-661-9.
- ^ Fogerty, J, 2015. Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music. 1st ed. U.K.: Hachette.
- ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 5899". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved July, 8 2023.
- GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved July, 8 2023.
- ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
- ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved July, 8 2023.
- ^ "Creedence Clearwater Revival Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved July, 8 2023.
- ^ "Creedence Clearwater Revival Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved July, 8 2023.
External links
- Bayou Country at Discogs (list of releases)
- Album online at radio3net.ro
- Infosite