Creedence Clearwater Revival On Track: Every Album, Every Song

Very good research, excellent details regarding all the songs of each album, very satisfying playback

I have now read quite a few of these On Track: Every Album Every Song books and reviewed some of them. Most of them are pretty good, the exceptions being for me the Kinks book which had some very brief entries for some of the songs, the Beatles Solo in the Seventies which was even worse in this respect with some extremely skimpy two sentence comments for many of the songs, and the Jethro Tull book where the author’s style is so opaque as to be almost unreadable in places. However this Creedence Clearwater Revival entry is uniformly excellent with detailed descriptions of every song. Unlike the authors of the Kinks and the Beatles Solo books Tony Thompson has really researched his subject and knows his stuff, musically, biographically and culturally. You can tell this as he gives a comprehensive list of cover versions of many of the songs showing that he really knows Creedence’s music.Of course it helps that CCR, like the Doors (not counting the pair of post Morrison records) who Thompson previously wrote about, only released six studio albums which makes books like this more manageable. As the Kinks had a huge discography it meant the author of that book was struggling to be comprehensive in the same way. Some authors in the series writing about artists with massive catalogues have limited their books to certain periods such as the Stones up to 1980 or Elton John in the Seventies, which is probably a sensible approach if they want to go into detail. Although it didn’t prevent the author of the Solo Beatles in the Seventies from producing a skimpy relatively worthless tome.Mr Thompson reviews all John Fogerty’s solo albums too, although not in the same detail as CCR, but this does make the book more comprehensive. He also discusses the dynamics within the band and places CCR in their cultural context, showing detailed knowledge and awareness of other music and influences on the band. (He hints on more than one occasion he doesn’t care for the Eagles!) The author’s digressions from the band’s music are always relatively brief and relevant, unlike the lengthy, irrelevant often impenetrable deviations in Greil Marcus’ awful book on the Doors which I have reviewed. Relevant social, historical and cultural discussion together with an insight into musical influences and band dynamics also enriches any analysis of the music.I would contend that there were five truly great American bands of the 60’s: The Beach Boys, Byrds, Doors, Velvet Underground and Creedence Clearwater Revival (Jefferson Airplane falling slightly short and the Grateful Dead a long way short). As I said in my review of John Fogerty’s Long Road Home DVD / CD set it’s easy to forget now how huge Creedence Clearwater Revival were in their brief heyday. For example, no one has reviewed this book until now. For a time in 69/70 CCR were the most popular band in America (and therefore the world), achieving massive sales in the UK too, and even outselling the Beatles. To quote from my ancient (1977) NME Book of Rock 2 ‘Creedence Clearwater Revival by 1970 was firmly entrenched as the most successful American rock band ever in terms of record sales and box office returns.’ Undoubtedly this will have been beaten, presumably multiple times since, (not sure by whom), however it remains an impressive statement, and their wonderful music also remains. Although slightly forgotten today, as Mr Thompson points out their music (being quintessentially American) has frequently appeared on film soundtracks, so even if you don’t know the band you may be subconsciously familiar with many of their songs.If you are indeed unaware of CCR, this excellent book is a great starting point and for those of us who already love the band it inspires us to return to the music, something that all good music books should do.