CoronaVinyl Day 47 (Quartet): Cosmo's Factory by Creedence Clearwater Revival

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is quartet, and there are obviously a ton of quartets from which to choose.  Obviously, I excluded any quartets that I've already featured over the prior 46 days.  And there were still a ton, so I just yelled out, "Fuck it, let's play some Creedence."  My dog was startled, but then quickly went back to sleep on the couch.

CCR or Creedence -- or Creedence Clearwater Revival, if you're not into the whole brevity thing -- was comprised of the Fogerty brothers (John on lead guitar and vocals and Tom on rhythm guitar), Stu Cook on bass, and Doug Clifford on drums.  While they were from California, they always kind of sounded like they were from the swamp.  After all, they did essentially invent the "swamp rock" genre.  John Fogerty's voice was a little hoarse and soulful, and the band's sound complemented that. 

They only put out music for about four years, 1968 to 1972, but they were one of the most successful bands around during that time.  In those four years, they put out a ridiculous seven studio albums.  To put that in perspective, Radiohead and Coldplay didn't release their respective seventh albums until 14 and 15 years after they released their first albums.

Of those seven albums, five reached the Top 10 of the Billboard album charts and two went to #1 (1969's Green River and 1970's Cosmo's Factory).  In those four years, they had 12 Top 40 hits in the U.S., including nine Top 10s.  Pretty much every one of their singles has been a staple on classic rock radio.

I only have one CCR album on vinyl, and it was their biggest one, Cosmo's Factory.  It went 4x platinum in the U.S., topped the album charts in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Finland, and Norway, and produced three Top 5 singles on the Billboard Hot 100:  "Travelin' Band"/"Who'll Stop The Rain" (#2), "Up Around the Bend"/"Run Through the Jungle" (#4), and "Lookin' Out My Back Door"/"Long As I Can See the Light" (#2).  In addition to those six heavy hitters, Cosmo's Factory features the 7-minute funky, psychedelic rocking opening track "Ramble Tamble," their jammy 11-minute cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and covers of Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me," Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby," and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "My Baby Left Me.  As an added bonus, the version on Spotify is the deluxe edition, so there is an alternate take of "Travelin' Band," a live version of "Up Around the Bend," and a fantastic version of "Born on the Bayou" featuring Booker T. & The MGs.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Ramble Tamble"
Generally, you want to open an album with a hit, but CCR instead went with a 7-minute song with various tempo changes and a long instrumental section.  Granted, the song rocks.  After the first part of the song, which is more funky and swampy, the instrumental section builds and builds to a frenzy, before kicking back to the original psychedelic swamp rock from the beginning of the song.  This track foreshadows Lynyrd Skynyrd and other Southern rockers that would come several years late.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Long As I Can See the Light"
This might be my favorite CCR song.  Like The Guess Who's "Do You Miss Me Darling?" (which I featured last Saturday/early Sunday morning), it's not the band's biggest song, but it's an impassioned and soulful slower song -- one that you sing to your lover right before you have to make the difficult decision to leave him or her, at least temporarily.  Fogerty's vocals make you believe that he's coming back one day, as long as you keep that candle in the window and he can see the light.