Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s bassist and drummer, are suing John Fogerty for violating the terms of a previous lawsuit settlement that had allowed them to play as “Creedence Clearwater Revisited,” apparently because Fogerty said some pissy things about them.
This after a decades-long battle between Fogerty and CCR’s old producer Saul Zaentz over rights to CCR songs, which kept him from playing his own music for years, and which, bizarrely, included Zaentz suing Fogerty for plagiarizing himself, and Fogerty writing a song about a pig named “Zanz,” which he was later forced to change to “Vanz.”
I’ve always loved CCR, and have liked Fogerty’s subsequent solo work to varying degrees. For what it’s worth, I think he’s been on the right side of most of these fights. He basically was Creedence; the rest of the guys - including his own brother - were essentially a backup band. If anybody should own the band name and the songs, it’s John Fogerty.
But the man has been carrying around so much bitterness and animosity around with him for so long, it’s just become sad.
That doesn’t sound angry and bitter to me at all. In fact, the whole story makes me think that it’s his former bandmates (and his sister-in-law) who are angry and bitter, not Mr. Fogerty.
I’m reminded that David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Roger McGuinn eventually came to an agreement that the name “The Byrds” may only be used if the project involves all three of them. And that after Carl Wilson passed, the Beach Boys splintered into two groups, one led by Mike Love and the other led by Al Jardine and they had to work some stuff out in court.