Someone should have
Taylor Swift
and
John Fogerty
sit down for a good chat about the music business. While
Swift
's very public battles over ownership of her recordings made headlines,
Fogerty
has been involved in a similar struggle for literally decades. In the 1960s,
signed a regrettable deal with
Fantasy Records
that gave the label ownership of the publishing rights to his songs as well as the masters to his recordings with
Creedence Clearwater Revival
. The implications of this became clear to
once the band became a success, and for a very long time he's been battling
Fantasy
(and the subsequent owners of their catalog) for the rights he signed away, which
founder
Saul Zaentz
zealously guarded. In 2023,
struck a deal that finally gave him majority interest in his publishing, but
Concord Music Group
still owns
CCR
's recordings. Now that
is a
Concord
artist, he's chosen to take back some of the thunder of his old recordings by cutting new versions of 20 of his best-known tunes from his years with
, and he seemingly tips his hat to
by calling the collection
Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years (John's Version)
, just as
's re-cut versions of
Fearless
,
Red
Speak Now
, and
1989
were subtitled "Taylor's Version."
has acknowledged his goal was to re-create the sound and feel of the original
versions as close as he could, and backed by a band anchored by his children --
Shane Fogerty
on guitar and bass;
Tyler Fogerty
on guitar, bass, and keyboards; and
Kelsy Fogerty
on drums and guitar -- he comes admirably close to duplicating the magic of
's original versions.
may be 80 years old, but his voice is still up to the task, and his guitar work is fine, while his kids can mimic the sound of his old band with impressive accuracy. These are some of the best and most heartfelt rock songs of the late 1960s and early '70s, and the messages of "Don't Look Now," "Bad Moon Rising," and "Fortunate Son" have lost none of their currency. However, as good as these new recordings may be, are they better than the old
releases? Frankly, no, and while the 2025 takes aren't an embarrassment, from a strictly musical standpoint, there isn't much reason to buy this other than goodwill and the desire to give
a well-earned payday for this work.
is a potent reminder of how many great songs
wrote in his salad days with
, and shows he still has the energy and spark to give them life, but he might have done a better job of demonstrating the latter if he'd come up with a good batch of new tunes. ~ Mark Deming