Every week Rich Terfry looks back at a great song from the good ol’ days.

We continue All in the Family week on Drive with a story about two brothers.

Creedence Clearwater Revival was a family band. They weren't all blood relatives, but they might as well have been. The members all knew each other from childhood and they fought like only brothers can.



CCR consisted of John and Tom Fogerty and their high school friends, Doug Clifford and Stu Cook. The band had survived many ups and downs through the late sixties, but things began to get tense in 1970. After the success of the Cosmo's Factory album, which was released that year, John Fogerty took control of the band. He elected himself financial manager and creative leader of the outfit. This appointment rubbed the other members of the band the wrong way. Understandably so, they wanted to have their fair share of input into the band's decisions. Fogerty insisted that democracy would ruin the band's successful run. Among other things, he made the decision that the band would no longer give encores.

Tom Fogerty became fed up. He had threatened to quit numerous times in the past, but in early 1971, he left for good. Once he was out the door, John Fogerty made another new rule: now the band would take a strict democratic approach. Each member of the band would write and sing his own songs and Fogerty would only play rhythm guitar on the other members' songs. If they didn't like it, Fogerty said he would leave. Tensions reached an all-time high and the band only lasted another year after that, calling it quits once and for all in 1972.

When things first began to sour for CCR, John Fogerty felt it, despite the hard line he was taking. He wrote a song about it and it became a hit. The song is called "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" It marked a shift in the band in more ways than one. Not only did it address the tensions that were rising in the band, it took a new approach creatively. It was much more stripped down than most previous CCR material. Nevertheless, the song was a big hit, especially here in Canada. It peaked at number eight in the US but went all the way to number one in the Great White North.

Here's the song that marked the beginning of the end for CCR -- the band's last hit featuring Tom Fogerty. Listen to the entire story behind 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain' here. 

Listen here

 

 

Here are some other great editions of Rear-View Mirror:

Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightning"

Bobby Womack, "Across 110th Street"

Roy Orbison, "In Dreams"

Foggy Hogtown Boys, "Man of Constant Sorrow"

Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"

Neil Young, "Cortez The Killer"

Bob Dylan, "Subterraneon Homesick Blues"

Little Eva, "Loco-Motion"

Elvis Costello, "Watching the Detectives"

Jimmy Cliff, "The Harder They Come"

The Verve, "Bittersweet Symphony"

Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly with his Song"

R.E.M., "Radio Free Europe"

Radiohead, "No Surprises"

Led Zeppelin, "Ramble On"

Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman"

Rolling Stones, "Beast of Burden"

John Cougar Mellencamp, "Pink Houses"

posted by Mark Wigmore on Jun 19, 2012