Fortunate Son

by John Fogerty

  In August, I started telling the band, “Something’s gonna happen in October.” Now, I had no clue. I didn’t have any inside information. But the notion just kept coming to me and I kept saying it: “Something’s gonna happen in October, and it’s gonna change things.”

  And what happened was this: Saul Zaentz, along with some backers, bought Fantasy away from the Weiss brothers. Saul called us to a meeting at his house in early October 1967 and said, “I have just purchased Fantasy Records, and I want to sign you guys.” Saul seemed like our friend. He had been the sales manager at Fantasy. Whenever we would come in, we’d see Saul at his desk, and he struck us as less crazy than the others. He seemed to be our ally. Now Saul was going to be the guy in charge, and he wanted to give us a real shot.

  So the first thing out of our mouths was, “Can we change our name?” And that is the way it happened, because there is no other way. I’ve read that Saul takes credit for that. We said it to him first, because we hated being Golliwogs.

  So Saul said, “Yeah, of course.”

  We asked, “Can we finally go and make a real record in a real studio? Not in the lean-to?”

  And he said, “Yeah, I think that’ll be all right.” Then he added, “I want us to have a new contract because I’m gonna be the new owner, and I don’t want the Weiss brothers saying you’re under contract to them.”

  We all looked at each other. We felt like we had been working a lot harder now. Our intent wasn’t to keep doing it the way Max Weiss had done it. We wanted to change our name and make a living at this. We were all still poor as church mice. The idea of actually “making it” was such a faraway concept that nobody even knew what that would mean—but it might have meant getting a song on the radio. Or making enough money off a record to buy a new car. Y’know, like a hit group! Like the Beatles or something!

  Doug Clifford said to Saul, “What if we make it, and we’re successful?”

  Saul said, “I will tear up that contract and we will get a new contract.”

  I’m sure Doug remembers that to this day, because it was kind of addressed to him. And us. That was Saul’s response: we will tear the contract up. I think he added, “We all share equally in this thing.” We felt that Saul was our partner. He was penniless, broke, driving a five-year-old station wagon, and operating Fantasy out of that car. So the way Saul explained it to us was that we were part of the business. We were not just that stupid group called the Golliwogs; we were now partners making this business go. That’s how we all felt, this group of five people. All for one and one for all. We were Fantasy Records. There was not another living soul there. We were it.

  Almost instantly, we started trying to think up a new name for the band. All I can say is that most of them were pretty dreadful. We’d sit around at these coffee sessions: “How about… ?” I remember Stu called me up one day and suggested the name Hardwood. I think Doug came up with Gossamer Wump and Gumby.

  Tom was the one who suggested the word “credence.” Our friend Jerry lived in an apartment building where the custodian was named Credence Nuball. He was South African—it was his real name. So Tom suggested we name our band Credence Nuball and the Ruby. I thought of the name Whiskey Rebellion, and for, like, a minute I liked it. It had a kind of funky sound to me, obviously reflecting my love of history—especially American history. Also, I really liked the idea of our band having a renewal, a resurgence. Whiskey Revival? That wasn’t any better than the rest. If some guy comes up and hands you a lug nut, it’s up to you to say, “No, I’m not going to be a lug nut.” I knew I’d know the right name when I heard it. So for almost three months we kept coming up with names and rejecting them.

  Then, on Christmas Eve of 1967, I was watching TV and this commercial for Olympia Beer came on in glorious color. The image was this wonderful enchanted forest with a bubbling brook, everything green and mossy. Their motto was “It’s the water.” I’m pretty sure it was the Beach Boys singing beautifully in the background. The very next thing that came on was a black-and-white public service announcement for clean water. An antipollution commercial—a concept that was just starting to fly in America. It showed a stream full of cigarette butts and Styrofoam cups, and on the screen it said, “Write to CLEAN WATER,” and it gave a Washington, DC, address.

  Even though it plainly said “clean water,” my mind turned it into “clear water.” Clearwater. Wow… I liked that. It sounded kind of Native American. I had a great love for their lore and history, and for figures like Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Chief Joseph.

  Right there I went back to the word “revival.” Clearwater Revival. That just wasn’t quite… unique enough. This was all happening in a nanosecond.

  Suddenly the word “Creedence” came to me. “Creedence” meant credibility, belief—it had a spiritual sound. “Clearwater” instantly had a positive vibe, a point of view, a sense of history, culture, Americana. My mind was racing, a million thoughts at once. Somehow the words “Creedence” and “Revival” were swirling around in this tumbling torrent of thoughts. I’m not sure in which order the words were first connected, but I do remember that I had to juggle them around a bit. Was it Clearwater Creedence or Clearwater Revival? This was all happening in a matter of a few seconds, maybe a minute or two. Suddenly it just popped: Creedence Clearwater Revival. I loved it. But I thought, Wow, that’s a mouthful. It sounded even more American. It told you this was an American rock and roll band, and it was unique. So that’s how it all kind of clanged together in my head.

  Then I had to sell it. I knew the personalities in my band well enough to know that I had to not take ownership of the name. It had to look like it was in the air and just happened. The other guys were not all that sure. I’d write it out—“See how that looks?” I think Tom might’ve convinced them. No more Golliwogs. We were now Creedence Clearwater Revival.

  I remember telling the guys at the time, “The name is better than we are.” We were a Top 40 band playing clubs. Playing more distinctly than we had a year ago, but still kind of messy. Not organized, not powerful.

  But by February I had come up with the idea of recording “Susie Q.”

  In January 1968, we signed the new contract with Fantasy Records that Saul Zaentz had requested. Sometime after that October meeting at Saul’s house, he gave me the contract and I took it back to the band. We had agreed that in Creedence every band decision had to be a unanimous one. If one person said no, the matter was vetoed.

  Now, I wasn’t the most sophisticated guy in the world, and I knew that I could read that contract until the end of time and not know what it meant. We didn’t have any legal representation—it was just us four guys. Stu was a business major, and his dad, Herman, was a prominent Bay Area attorney. So we all decided to give the contract to Stu so Herm could look it over.

  One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when you are trying to make a deal with another entity, there is back and forth dialogue over the contract. You negotiate—it’s expected. They propose something; you send it back with a counteroffer. The lawyers haggle, hopefully with input from you, and an agreement is eventually reached. I didn’t know that then, but a prestigious attorney like Herman Cook certainly would have. That’s the very reason we asked Stu to take the contract to him. So that should’ve been done for us. It wasn’t. We were too dumb to know anything about that—all of us. I mention this because in the years since, Stu has been in the press talking about what a terrible businessman I was, and how I messed it all up for the group—Boy, did John ef up. Ironically, it was business major Stu who was supposed to get input from his lawyer father. Herm’s only supposed advice was that it was okay to sign—no additions, no revisions, nothing.

  Over the years, I have often wondered if Stu even showed the contract to his father.

  About two weeks later, the band was at the Shire, loading up equipment for a show that night, and we were passing each other, carrying guitars, amplifiers, and drums. I remember this scene vividly
, as I have replayed it many times in my mind.

  One of us said, “Hey, Stu!”

  Stu said, “Yeah?”

  “What did your dad say?”

  “What did Dad say about what?”

  “What did your dad say about the contract?”

  There was a pause. “He said, ‘It’s okay.’”

  “Okay what?”

  “It’s okay to sign.”

  “Yay!” we all cheered. We were very happy.

  Now, I certainly take responsibility—at least a quarter share!—for signing that contract on January 5, 1968. I’ve never said, “I was drunk!” Or “They pumped me full of morphine!” At the time, we thought Saul was our friend. He wasn’t going to screw us, right?

  But this contract would become infamous. And it would have a much more devastating impact on my life than it did for the rest of the band. Yes, it was terrible for all of us financially—our royalty rate (paid out of net sales, not gross) was 10 percent, increasing gradually to 12 percent over a few years—but for the creator of the material, there were long-reaching implications. Saul owned the copyright on all our songs, lock, stock, and barrel.

  Fantasy was also now owed a number of songs per year, and if we didn’t record them, the obligation would carry over to the next year. And the next. The grand total (which was actually upped in our second, June 1969, contract) amounted to 180 songs over seven years—and if not completed once that period ended, they’d still be owed. In 1969, Creedence’s best year, we recorded three hit albums, but that only amounted to twenty-six songs. Besides me, nobody wrote songs in Creedence that amounted to anything, so when we broke up, the other guys were all set free. Not me. Fantasy Records had not only chiseled me out of a fortune, they still owned my future. I was enslaved.

  That was all in the dark future, though. Right now we were four guys in a room with a dream. And Saul was in the same boat. How innocent it all was.*

  I didn’t hang out in San Francisco a lot—maybe went over to Golden Gate Park occasionally, headed to the Fillmore to see a few shows. But when I got off of active duty with the army, it was the Summer of Love, 1967. And there was a lot of attention being given to San Francisco culturally, musically, politically. I liked the politics. Because that’s the way Pete Seeger talked: Be responsible for yourself and help your fellow man. Don’t be a burden. Live and let live. Don’t try to control everybody. I still feel that’s the best way.

  I always felt that I had everything in common with the other bands that way, and I liked that bands rather than record companies seemed to be controlling the thing. And the San Francisco scene seemed to be outside the regular music business. It definitely wasn’t Los Angeles.

  I felt connected with the San Francisco scene, but there were times when we’d see something there that would always bring home how different Creedence was. We went as a band to see Otis Redding at the Fillmore. To me he was so much better than almost anything else you could see there. Otis commanded that stage. On the other hand, I remember going to Winterland—I can’t remember if it was to see Jefferson Airplane or the Grateful Dead. Everybody was stoned. Somebody started to play and went into a guitar solo, and that was the whole set. Forty-five minutes of guitar solo. I was so frickin’ out of there.

  I reacted against that. What I had learned from James Brown and Jackie Wilson was how to entertain. When you’re performing, it’s a presentation. Watching Hank Ballard at the Oakland Auditorium, there was so much energy. There was competition, each act trying to outdo the other. The way the Grateful Dead and bands like that performed just seemed so sleepy. “And now, from San Francisco, the Grateful Dead!” They’d come shuffling out and everybody went to their amps—bring, bwang, bwing. They’d tune up for ten minutes. What?! Don’t let them announce you until you’re ready! “And now… again… the Grateful Dead!” When the Dead would jam, it seemed like they’d go off the path right away—and then stay off the path. Either you like that or you don’t. In my world, I couldn’t have my music be as unstructured as that. It makes me uncomfortable. They’d announce Creedence, and we’d tear out there, plug in, and go!

  I think what I took most umbrage with was the stoned part, and that made me different from many of the San Francisco musicians. You dare not be stoned playing music around me. Not in my band. No. I talked about it then and I’ll talk about it now. How are you going to do your best work stoned? Look, it’s not that I’m anti-pot, especially in those days. It’s a recreational deal. But when you’re working, you’re supposed to be working. I didn’t want to see a drunk Dean Martin up there singing sloppy ballads either. Potheads always thought they were superior to the alcoholics. For one thing, they’d have a picture of a marijuana plant on their wall. My dad never had a picture of a Budweiser can on the wall. I sure as shit didn’t want to see that. This was just an unhappy addiction to me.

  Timothy Leary? What a jerk. A buffoon. I thought what he was doing was damaging. Lots of kids did stuff and probably hurt themselves because some official-looking guy like Leary told them it was okay. You’d be backstage at the Carousel Ballroom, and there’d be some guy who hadn’t taken a bath in ages handing out greens or yellows or blues—yeah, it’s free, but it might be arsenic. I didn’t want any part of that, whatever it was. People were walking around with mystery pills. This scared me. LSD? I didn’t want to jump out a window.

  I could probably count on one hand how many times I smoked marijuana in my whole career. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. In the early days of Creedence, I remember sitting around the Shire stoned, and we were going to solve all the problems of the world…

  As I mentioned, we had begun to practice every day, and we talked a lot about being more serious. There were many pot-smoking sessions at night where we discussed things like writing songs and being better on our instruments.

  At one point we even adopted a pseudonym, “T. Spicebush Swallowtail,” which was going to represent the songwriter on the tunes we would all write together. About this time, I went and got my little songwriting notebook. And I began to write songs, titles, ideas, etc. There was a lot of talking and a lot of pot smoking… a lot of being stoned and talking about doing this or that. This probably went on for a few weeks.

  Every day we would meet at the Shire to practice. We would jam a bit and, after some time had passed, I would ask, “Does anybody have anything, any new songs?” And there’d be a silence and some mumbling. There is a quote from Ernest Hemingway about working on Hollywood movie projects that resonates with me. To paraphrase: “After all the talking, sooner or later someone is going to have to get down to the business of writing.” So I would show the band what I had come up with on my own. Things went on like this for a time, until it evolved into me just showing the band some songs and musical ideas. After a while I stopped asking if anybody had anything.

  But the subject really remained open. It was not as if I had said, “Okay, you guys can’t write any songs. I will write all the songs from now on.” I simply got very busy and worked feverishly to come up with music for the band. I really did not want to go back to being an obscure band. If at any time the other guys had come up with a great song, I’m sure we would’ve jumped on it. But instead of actually doing the work, they contented themselves with grumbling about it… from the sidelines.

  This is something that really ticks me off, in showbiz and in life. You know, people who complain about how they should have gotten this break or that part.… “They” stole my idea.… I coulda been a contendah. But these same people never do the work, never come up with anything of substance. We ended up using T. Spicebush Swallowtail for only one single: “Porterville” / “Call It Pretending.” I wrote both songs—by myself.

  So there we were at the Shire, stoned, and we were gonna solve all the problems of the world. And the next day everything went right back to where it had been before. I guess we’re not all gonna write “Strawberry Fields Forever.” At some point the drugs wear off.

  I don�
��t mean to be on a soapbox or sound preachy. I wasn’t a prude, and I didn’t think I was above it—I just thought, man, be yourself while you’re trying to make a record or perform in front of people. They want to see you at your best. I always viewed a live performance as kind of like a prizefight. Meaning you have to be in shape for this, give the most that you can to your fans.

  I never wanted to feel that I let one get away from me, to have a show where I’d just gone out and been sloppy and awful and stupid. In the Jackie Wilson era, there seemed to be a sense of honor, a sense of duty, like, “I’m lucky to have this job. You should take it seriously, or pretty soon they’re not going to let you do that job.” I still feel that way.

  I was always making this speech to the band. I had to be the general and I wanted us to rock. I didn’t appreciate hearing, “Maybe it would be better if we’re stoned.” I think there were some instances later when the guys in the band tried to put one over on me because I was such a square. They tricked me a couple of times and did it anyway. And then blamed it on the Grateful Dead: “They put LSD in the coffee!” (Hell, you can blame anything on the Dead.) I thought we were better than that. I’m not going to say “smarter”; I’m going to say “better.” Meaning that we were a band, and that for us, music was the most important thing.

  What many British groups—even some American ones—had done when they first started out was show the world how well they played classic rock and roll. The Stones had “Not Fade Away,” “Around and Around,” and “Carol”; the Beatles did “Money,” “Kansas City,” and “Twist and Shout.” They had their feet planted firmly in the tradition of rock and roll. With that in mind, I liked the idea of doing an old song instead of trying to come up with a new one. The point in my mind was not to worry about writing a new song, because we’d done that and it wasn’t working. I said, “I’m gonna take a song I already know is a good song.” And so I settled on “Susie Q.”