The Day the Music Died...for me

They are still my mother's favorite rock band. She, of course, is from the generation that suffered severe shock and awe at the coarse grating soundwaves created by the youngsters of the time. Some of her contemporaries embraced it. More avoided it like a plague amplified by the new portable radios everywhere, belching a new form of sound pollution like a mad pack of screeching monkeys around every corner. She and I still like to sit and listen to music, and she can still talk about it as well as some of us young 60 year olds. CCR has a sound that will last forever.
Rusty

Dad in Viet Nam and my Grand mother lived in Oakland CA where I went to school while dad did his thing for God n Country

Local band, The Blue Velvet's played a lot of high school Proms.... mostly a good mix of, at the time, popular Juke Box favorites but they did play their own stuff too

I have never...to this day...payed any real attention to who the band members were or are....BUT I did know Tom Fogerty from El Cerrito High

Because we lived all over the country and some foreign lands I was mildly amused that this band did the Bayou Cajun thing...but I loved it ---and ended up having a copy of everything CCR ever recorded

CCR
Rare Earth
Moody Blues
Jimmy Hendrix
Doors
Led Zepplin

Oh the memories!!!

That letter is SO cool Kim! Despite the bad news

In the eighties there was a Finnish band called the Hanoi Rocks. They covered "Up Around the Bend", I liked the song and started looking for the original version... No 'net so it was a lot like Kim described, rumors. CCR was not well known in Finland in the '60s, I am a bit younger and my mom and dad (both born in '49) were fans of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones respectively.

Well, once on the 9th grade or so we were on a field trip from school in the nearby city of Tampere. A couple of buddies and me snuck away from the art museum and slipped into a used-record store. For the equivalent of a couple of bucks I picked up a double-album of CCR hits. It is one of those highly non-collectible, cheap compilations, a bit scratched but it is "the" CCR record for me. I must have taped it for at least half a dozen buddies, and of course later on I played it in the cassette player of my first car for several thousand miles

Here is my CCR collection. Nothing special, most of them are cheap "nice price" editions on flimsy mid-80s vinyl. I got so used to the order of songs on that double-LP that ot was hard for me to listen to a CD hit collection (not in the pic) that I got later.

Kari, you just mentioned something that still irks me to no end. That is the original order of the songs on the LP. Some songs are meant to be back-to-back, and others just became known that way, and it just doesn't sound right to have a dead-air gap between them. How about Heartbreaker and Livin' Lovin' Maid. And almost all Blue Oyster Cult songs from my favorite first few albums(up to and including Secret Treaties) are purposefully connected, and there is no clear place to cut them to stand alone.

And Fred, yeah, CCR had us believing they were from the bayou. Fooled me!
Rusty

Rusty, I think I know what you mean. Additionally many LP's have the a and b sides somehow structured so that both sides feel like two different entities. That is not so apparent if the album is on a CD, since there is no extended break on the CD that you would have when you flip the record on the turntable.

I got used to that 2-LP collection and its order of songs, maybe I should try the original albums too For me ZZ Top's albums are something that must not be messed with.

CD's have a very good sound quality and they are easy to use, but the downside is that it is so easy and quick to skip songs, and with the remote control, if a song on a new CD is not immediately catchy the temptation to hit >>| is almost irresistible.

Wow, ZZ Top in Finland. "Mexican Blackbird," that's one of my favorite ZZ Top songs.
You can get a taste of all the culturally different regions in America by listening to some of these bands.
Kraftwerk was popular in the US. Scandinavian, I know, but I'm not sure which country... Denmark?

Most teenagers in Finland in the '80s listened to bands like Twisted Sister, Kiss, Judas Priest and such, or Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran and other Disco groups. There were some pretty popular domestic bands too playing a variety of genres.

ZZ Top was certainly not mainstream, but I was and still am a fan. First 9 albums I bought were all ZZ Top... The 10th was Status Quo's (also not mainstream) mostly because the Top had only released 9 albums so far I had no idea what the lyrics meant in most of the songs on "El Loco", now I do, fortunately my parents had no idea either  

My favourite is "Tube Snake Boogie", the first ZZ Top song I ever heard, and still it just rocks. Mexican Blackbird, like all the songs on the b-side of "Fandango", is a great one too.

I enjoy all of those groups listed even though they are before my time.
Phil

Well Thats messed up i thought they were from the Bayou !! Dumb butt me i never looked it up But did and still Love CCR !! Fogerty Bros. was just one of the best with there down to earth songs. You are Lucky to have that paper Kim , even if its not what ya want to hear .

getback wrote:Well Thats messed up i thought they were from the Bayou !! Dumb butt me i never looked it up But did and still Love CCR !!  Fogerty Bros. was just one of the best with there down to earth songs. You are Lucky to have that paper Kim , even if its not what ya want to hear .

Somewhat of a miracle that the letter survived, considering my life at the time.

I held out hope for a long time afterward that CCR might eventually get back together, even after John Fogerty's brother Tom (rhythm guitar), passed away.  I've got a couple of books on the group, and they pretty much outline John's passionate hatred for his bandmates and Fantasy records during a contract dispute.

Also, the group as a whole apparently lost a big wad of cash in some off-shore investing scheme, so there was plenty of financial scheming and trauma with my altruistic, 'money don't mean nothin' buddies.

When CCR was inducted into the Hall of Fame, there was talk that they might reassemble, with Tom Fogerty's son taking his father's place as rhythm guitar.  But John would would have none of it, demanding that he alone receive the award...which is what happened...with him referencing 'his' hits.

He eventually forgave Fantasy Records enough to record there again, but apparently still hates Stu Cook and Doug Clifford for not siding with him about their cut.

Fantasy re-packaged CCR's songs in all sorts of combinations, but I mostly stuck to collecting their concert albums.  John has had several Albums, which I've collected, and Doug Clifford and Stu Cook released an L.P. titled 'Cosmo', which I bought, but with none of the foot-stomping music of CCR.

A final bit of trivial (as if I haven't been boring enough already) is that Fantasy got in some trouble with the release of a concert album, billed as 'The Royal Albert Hall Concert'.  But it wasn't recorded there, and the album was re-released as 'The Concert' which you can see in Kari's photos.



Born on the Bayou Kim

KAAY 1090 4-13-1971 Little Rock AR

Did you ever listen to KAAY back in the day? I believe it could be picked up across much of the US at night.

I like CCR but my mother never cared for them. She never liked John Fogerty.

I know you were waiting for me to post a picture of some 8-tracks.



Here's a bootleg 4-track (not an 8-track) of "A collection of their No.1 Hits". The shell is a little deformed, someone must've left it on their dashboard in the sun. Like most bootleg 4-tracks and 8-tracks, the sound quality is pretty poor, almost as bad as that KAAY aircheck.


Here's a Spanish release cassette of "The Concert".

May have run across it, but "THE CHANNEL" at night was 89 WLS out of Chicago. A couple local stations here had their power up during the day, and that was the way I found out about CCR's singles as they were released. The songs and albums just kept rolling out faster and better, and it was easy to figure they'd go on forever.

My older brother was a trooper in the Missouri Highway Patrol back then, and HATED anything that wasn't Jerry Reed, or Glen Campbell or such. He's come a long way from the days when he called my favorite group "Creedence Queer Water", and now has most of their albums.

'Bout five years ago, he sent me a CD with a note to the effect, 'Thought you might like this...it's really good...the guy's name is Eric Clapton'.

Got to love family...

I don't know but I've been told that the band members did not receive one cent for royalties whenever their songs were played on the radio after whatever happened with the contract. That's just Wrong, not to receive anything for those oft played and much beloved tunes.

I always tell the kids and grandkids, the day that the music died was when Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper got killed. Rock and Roll was never the same after that to me
During that time transistor radios were just becoming available since the transistor was invented in 1957, so me and my buddies had the Japanese "Rocket" crystal radios that clipped to your window screen and worked mostly at night when you were supposed to be in bed !! Listened to WLS,WOWO /Ft.Wayne, KMOX, and Philly( Jerry Blabbit "The Geeter with the Heater").
Found an NIB Rocket Radio years ago for $10 at flea market. Last used one saw on auction was $300.00 BIN !!!
Saw Eric Clapton on a PBS TV special a few years ago honoring Stevie Ray Vaughn who maybe the best blues guitar ever in my opinion. The special featured B.B.King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughn ( Stevie Ray's Brother), Eric Clapton, and Dr. John from New Orleans on piano. Wish I could have been there...

Music died just a little bit more today (yesterday) with the passing of Chuck Berry.

WLS 890AM (unscoped/complete with music):
WLS 6-7-1960
WLS 1-3-1969
WLS 9-23-1971
WLS 5-3-1975
WLS 7-12-1975
WLS 9-8-1975

WOWO 1190AM (unscoped/complete with music):
WOWO 11-20-1976

66 Malibu wrote:
Saw Eric Clapton on a PBS TV special a few years ago honoring Stevie Ray Vaughn who maybe the best blues guitar ever in my opinion. The special featured B.B.King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughn ( Stevie Ray's Brother), Eric Clapton, and Dr. John from New Orleans on piano. Wish I could have been there...

I think I recorded that. I know I saw it, it was a great show.

Jacob.....Thanks for the WLS and WOWO links....They bring back some good times.......

Steve....