Creedence Clearwater Revival

USA, 1967–1972

Californian band led by John Fogerty, active 1967-1972. They worked in a concise, blues and country-derived style at a time when Bay Area rock favoured extended psychedelic playing.

MusicRoots documents 13 artists who influenced Creedence Clearwater Revival and 3 artists Creedence Clearwater Revival influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Creedence Clearwater Revival?

• Muddy Waters — Muddy Waters' blues is the foundation Fogerty built the swamp-rock sound upon.
• Elvis Presley — Hearing 'My Baby Left Me' on a jukebox at about eleven set Fogerty on rock and roll; CCR later cut the song themselves on Cosmo's Factory.
• Little Richard — The rock and roll player Fogerty names first among his models, and the source of the attack in his singing.
• Bo Diddley — Named by Fogerty alongside Little Richard as a first model; the rhythmic insistence of CCR's riff writing comes from that side rather than from the blues.
• Duane Eddy — Fogerty saw Eddy play in Oakland around 1958, sitting in the front row with two future members of the band; the twang carries into 'Cross-Tie Walker' and 'Big Train (from Memphis)'.
• Booker T. & the M.G.'s — Fogerty's model for what a band should be: four players making one groove rather than four parts. He played the Hammond B3 himself across Pendulum in acknowledgement.
• Lead Belly — Willy and the Poor Boys (1969) sets Fogerty's own writing beside two reworked Lead Belly songs, 'Cotton Fields' and 'Midnight Special'.
• Hank Williams — Williams's country roots feed the swamp flavour and autobiographical directness of Fogerty's lyrics.
• John Lee Hooker — John Lee Hooker is the source of the hypnotic rhythmic boogie groove at the heart of CCR.
• Chet Atkins — Atkins sits in Fogerty's guitar vocabulary beside Merle Travis — the country side of a player usually filed under blues.
• Carl Perkins — Among the rock and roll records Fogerty grew up on, behind Little Richard and Bo Diddley.
• Chuck Berry — Named with Carl Perkins and Elvis among the rock and roll players Fogerty learned from.
• Robert Johnson — Sits in Fogerty's guitar vocabulary beside Muddy Waters, the Delta end of it.

Which artists did Creedence Clearwater Revival influence?

• Bruce Springsteen — Springsteen inducted CCR into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and played three of their songs with Fogerty at the ceremony.
• John Mellencamp — Heartland rock, the form Mellencamp works in, is documented as descending in part from CCR — the plain writing and the unfashionable directness rather than any one song.
• Kings of Leon — Creedence Clearwater Revival's swampy, roots-rock economy is part of the Southern lineage running through Kings of Leon's early sound.