Huge arena crowd treated to Fogerty’s classic music

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This article was published 17/07/2022 (1482 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE godfather of swamp-rock brought his famous sounds of the bayou Sunday to go with down south heat and humidity that made Winnipeg a giant sweat puddle.

John Fogerty, rock ‘n’ roll royalty owing to fronting Creedence Clearwater Revival and hits of his own as a solo artist, took the stage at Canada Life Centre in front of about 9,000 fans seeking to once again hear classics such as Up Around the Bend, which led his set.

His trademark swamp-rock sound came to the fore in his two songs Green River, which included an excellent Fogerty solo, and the equally-famous Born on the Bayou.

He introduced Who’ll Stop The Rain? with a story about his sunburst Rickenbacker guitar, which he said was part of many of CCR’s hits.

When the band broke up, in 1973, he thoughtlessly gave the guitar away to a kid.

Fast-forward 44 years, and his wife found and bought his guitar back “for an exorbitant price, for my guitar.”

It’s a guitar reunion story not unlike one surrounding another ’60s and ’70s guitar great, Randy Bachman. The Guess Who great’s orange Gretsch, which he purchased in the early ’60s not far from where Canada Life Centre sits today, was stolen in 1976. Earlier this month Bachman and his guitar were reunited too, in Tokyo, where a guitarist there purchased it about a decade ago.

Fogerty has played Winnipeg’s downtown five times in the past 15 years, but not since 2014. He was to be the headliner for Dauphin’s Countryfest in 2020 but the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the event, among many others the past two years.

Back to Fogerty. The 77-year-old’s voice was strong, especially in one of his solo songs, Joy of My Life, which included a soaring sax solo.

The song was given new life earlier this year when country great Chris Stapleton recorded it, but his version doesn’t have Fogerty’s slinky slide guitar.

Country and country rock have liberally borrowed from CCR’s template over the years, and while many have made millions on Fogerty’s inspiration, there’s nothing like hearing classics such as Lookin’ Out My Back Door or Lodi from the master himself.

Fortunate Son, his most politically driven song, came near the end of his set.

Fortunate Son is also the title of his autobiography, which looked back at his CCR years, often bitterly, thanks to many lawsuits between him and his record company and his old bandmates, one of which went to the U.S Supreme Court.

He wrote that the experience took away any incentive to play CCR tunes, but only began playing them again at Bob Dylan’s insistence.

It was a wise suggestion. While bands around the world can play CCR songs, no one sings them like Fogerty, nor can guitar players mimic that swampy guitar sound that is Fogerty’s trademark.

During the pandemic lockdown in the spring and summer of 2020, Fogerty put a family band together with his sons, Tyler and Shane, as well as his daughter Kelsy and hit social media with their versions of CCR and Fogerty’s hits.

His pride was evident on the YouTube videos and the recordings became part of a 2021 record, Fogerty’s Factory.

Tyler and Shane, both singers and guitarists like their old man, joined their band Hearty Har to back the elder Fogerty during his set.

It was double duty, as Hearty Har opened Sunday’s concert with a rousing mix of psychedelic and garage rock — with all the gusto and guitar-playing ability their old man would have had in the 1960s, but fewer of the catchy tunes.

Media were denied accreditation for the concert, hence no photographs like the Free Press would ordinarily add to concert coverage.

That didn’t stop legions of fans on the floor and the better seats in the lower bowl of the arena to stream the show directly to their social media contacts, who enjoyed Fogerty’s performance for nothing.

The concert shifted into gear when Fogerty sang Have You Ever Seen The Rain? and then two solo favourites — Centerfield and The Old Man Down the Road — from 1985, which introduced him to a new generation of fans.

On the latter, Fogerty and family jammed out for a lengthy parade of solos that showed he was as much of an inspiration to his sons as he was to millions of fans.

Fogerty played two more mega-hits — Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary — during his encore, which brought fans all around the arena to get out of their seats, pocket their phones for a few moments and dance to famous grooves.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @AlanDSmall