What do John Fogerty and Taylor Swift have in common?
Besides being two of the most formidable hit-makers in the history of the American music charts, both the former leader of roots rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival and and Swift have opted in recent years, after having been backed into a corner by unfortunate music industry circumstances, to re-record their own material in order to have greater control over their music.
“Taylor, I think, would be the supreme example of an artist doing that, almost a role model or a poster child for the concept, because it turned out really good for her,” Fogerty told The Pop Break. “She didn’t own the master (recordings), so she started re-recording them, because she was denied it, and it was so close, she should have been allowed to purchase them but somebody was being very capricious, and so she took the road of re-recording, and I feel that that forced the issue.”
Hence, the “Taylor’s Version” iterations of Swift’s catalog. Now, the world is being introduced to “John’s Version,” as it were, via the new album Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, which was released in August and features the 80-year-old Fogerty deftly delivering note-perfect renditions of Creedence classics such as “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son” and “Bad Moon Rising.”
“I have a really special place in my heart for Legacy, for this project, because I went on a roller coaster ride that very, very few people have gone on,” Fogerty said. “I had to become myself again. It was pretty amazing. Well, it’s only amazing because we succeeded.”
Inspiration for the album came in 2023, when Fogerty, after decades of legal maneuvering, reclaimed ownership of the publishing rights to his songs – the rights to the original recordings, however, will never revert back to him. The result of that conundrum is Legacy, produced by Fogerty and his son Shane, executive produced by John’s wife Julie, and featuring musical support from Shane and his brother, Tyler.
For the Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, the process of recapturing his 1960s hits in the studio all over again was a complicated one.
“It really turned into a lifetime-type journey that I wasn’t expecting at all,” Fogerty said. “When we first finally got (the idea of), ‘OK, let’s try this re-record thing,’ I probably had a little bit of anxiety about it, and then sticking my toe into the cold water of the stream and starting was almost nothing like what it was like at the end. So at some point I realized I was maybe being a little bit casual – I was doing a good job, but for some reason it seemed to me that it wasn’t kicking my butt and I just had to get much, much more engaged, much more demanding of everything.
“When you make a record originally and it’s a song you’ve written and you’re passionate about what the song is, you get those priorities, but when you’re going in to try to re-do or rekindle a prior performance there are whole lot of extra little things – details, of course, but demons, that are driving it – and once I realized that it was actually an emotional journey I had to go through to get myself into the same place so that I would sound the same and react the same and feel the same while I was singing and playing. So I did that, it was remarkable.”
Fogerty is now on the road in support of “Legacy,” and he and his band play the prestigious Betty Wold Johnson Stage of the Prudential Hall at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Wednesday, Nov. 12. Fogerty is grateful to be on the road – after all, despite enduring literal decades of music industry drama, his connection with his fans has remained steadfast.
“I actually address that most nights when we’re playing,” Fogerty said. “I really appreciate them and they certainly have inspired me. Under that banner of having been abused by the music business, I’m so grateful that they like the songs and come out and sing them. We have a great time. It’s just a lot of fun, it wipes away all the worry about the things that happened in the past. I just really love playing and performing.”
