Guest Howard
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Published Feb 19, 2017 by Dan Orkin
News and Reviews“John Fogerty has been reunited with the Rickenbacker 325 he played at Woodstock and on the Ed Sullivan Show. According to a report by Rolling Stone, Fogerty’s wife gave him the recovered guitar as a Christmas gift this past year.
“I started playing the solo in ‘Green River’ and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck,” he told Rolling Stone. “It was exactly that sound, 100 percent. I dare say I haven’t heard that sound since those days when I had the guitar.”
Fogerty bought the guitar new in 1969 at a Rickenbacker showroom, opting for a custom Bigsby tremolo and Gibson humbucker install. With these modifications in place, Fogerty painted the word ACME on the truss rod cover.
According to Fogerty, the guitar was given away around 1973 following the dissolution of Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was around this time Fogerty learned of his now infamously bad publishing deal with Fantasy Records, spelling the end of a musical and personal era.
Years later, Fogerty was shown with the guitar at Norman’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, CA, but was uninterested in paying the $40,000 it was then commanding. Eventually, the guitar landed in the hands of Gary Dick of Gary’s Classic Guitars, who sold it to Fogerty’s wife, Julie, last year.”
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Actually, I’m a little impatient and relied on google for the following:
“At the far end of the room sits the Rickenbacker he played at Woodstock (“I started with ‘Born on the Bayou’”), and beside him rests a highly coveted Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty” that was used to record “Bad Moon Rising” and “Lodi” in 1969 (“I don’t tour with that one; it’s iconic to me”). With time the wood has dried, the glue has hardened, and the value has increased substantially: the Les Paul that retailed for $545 is now likely worth an estimated $10,000. “I still take them out because they sound better with age”, says Fogerty who owns upwards of 300 guitars.
“Through the years I’ve kept the directive that when a song is crying for a certain guitar, get that guitar”.
This helps a little!
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In the “Lodi” video, John’s brother Tom is still part of the band on rhythm guitar. He left after a couple of years, stating he realised it was his brother’s band.
As for the MLT, how good is this from the Baby MonaLisa Twins with the awesome Papa Rudi on bass and the lovely Michaela on organ!
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“Lodi” is a favourite CCR song of mine, David. And a good call. I too didn’t really get what he was actually singing about for many, many years. The following puts what you were hearing in brilliant perspective:
“The song describes the plight of a down-and-out musician whose career has landed him playing gigs in the town of Lodi (pronounced “low-die”), a small agricultural city in California’s Central Valley about 70 miles (110 km) from Fogerty’s hometown of Berkeley. After playing in local bars, the narrator finds himself stranded and unable to raise bus or train fare to leave. Fogerty later said he had never actually visited Lodi before writing this song, and simply picked it for the song because it had “the coolest sounding name.” However, the song unquestionably references the town’s reputation as an uninteresting farm settlement, though the narrator does not make any specific complaints. The song’s chorus, “Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again,” has been the theme of several city events in Lodi.”
Probably not a typical MLT number (with their wide range of styles and genres, not sure what typical is for them anymore), of course I’d love to hear Mona and Lisa do this with one of those great live bands of theirs. For all the guitar nuts out their in MLT Clubland, can you advise this guitar hillbilly what guitars John is using. Looks like a Rickenbacker that changes to a Gretsch about the 1.47 mark. There is at least two live concerts used with the studio recording in this video. Actually, just remembered the Twins covered “Proud Mary” in their first live concert in 2007! Duh!
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Cheese anyone?
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Well, David, “Happy again” and “How can you win?” would have to be candidates for the club Topic “Misheard lyrics”. Your music teacher wasn’t alone in that regard and in those days they didn’t have the internet and google for easy reference like we do now. He would have had to pay for the sheet music!
Another great sixties song I could get excited about the MLT covering, from a couple of years earlier, is “Tell Him” from the Exciters. Unfortunately poor quality video from the early sixties.
“Actually, this wasn’t taken from a TV show. Long before the invention of “music videos,” Scopitones were short 16mm films made to play in bars and restaurants on what were essentially jukeboxes with TV-like screens. You’d select a tune, drop in your coins and the film clip you wanted to see was selected from a reel inside and rear-projected onto the device’s small screen. Some Scopitones, like the Soundies which preceded them, were quite imaginatively staged; others simply showcased a performer in from of a stationary curtain. All, though, preserved those stars (and sometimes non-stars) at their peaks as they were shot around the same time that the songs were hits. In some cases, such little shorts are the ONLY filmed record of these performers in action.”
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I agree with you that “Being There” was a good performance from Peter Sellers. It’s a long time since I saw the movie, but I still remember the scene where he’s in a bedroom and the TV’s on and his comment to a woman “I like to watch” is misunderstood and taken as being kinky! Talking of which, have I mentioned any potential Kink’s covers lately!
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Thanks for the George Martin reference Michael. The Goons were a favourite of mine. They were a favourite of the Monty Python team too and can also claim Prince Charles as a fan. I always liked Spike Millican’s approach to life. A very funny man! “Every time I fell like the need for exercise, I lie down until the feeling goes away”!
I also liked Peter Cook and Dudley Moore when they worked together and the Two Ronnies, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.
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Hi Angelo. It’s been nice knowing you. Sorry to see you go so soon. It’s not too late to reconsider. The end of the year is a very interesting time in the Club. Last year the MLT team produced their excellent Advent Calendar that included something special every day from December 1 until Christmas day and this year I am expecting them to bring out their new album, so it will be a very exciting time to be a member of the Club.
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Yes Jung, like your mom, I well remember Petula Clark’s Downtown constantly being played on radio downunder in 1965. It was a huge hit here.
Some important stats:
“Downtown” rose to No. 2 UK in December 1964, remaining there for three weeks, kept out of the #1 position by the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine”. Certified a Gold record for sales in the UK of 500,000, “Downtown” also reached #2 in Ireland and #1 in Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa, and was also a hit in Denmark (#2), India (#3), the Netherlands (#4) and Norway (#8).
But “Downtown” had its greatest significance in the reception it was afforded in the United States. Downtown” leapt to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated 23 January 1965, retaining that position a further week before being overtaken by the ascendancy of The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”. The song became the first #1 hit for the year 1965. Petula Clark thus became the first UK female artist to have a US #1 hit during the rock and roll era and the second in the annals of US charted music, Vera Lynn having hit #1 US with “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” in 1952.
“Downtown” also made Clark the first UK female artist to have a single certified as a Gold record for US sales of one million units. On Billboard’s annual Disk Jockey poll, “Downtown” was voted the second best single release of 1965 and Petula Clark was voted third most popular female vocalist. “Downtown” would be the first of fifteen consecutive hits Clark would place in the US Top 40 during a period when she’d have considerably less chart impact in her native UK, there reaching the Top 40 eight times.”
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Good suggestion Mike! I’m hoping our favourite Twins will have some other promotional plans in progress for their much anticipated third ‘originals’ album by then.
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We all know the Monty Python team like taking the piss. For American, Asian and Continental European Club members, this term may need explaining.
“Taking the piss is a Commonwealth term meaning to take liberties at the expense of others, or to be joking, or to be unreasonable. It is a shortening of the idiom taking the piss out of, which is an expression meaning to mock, tease, joke, ridicule, or scoff. Taking the Mickey (Mickey Bliss, Cockney rhyming slang), taking the Mick or taking the Michael is another term for making fun of someone. These terms are most widely used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.”
The Monty Python team have had much fun taking the piss out of Australians in their “Bruces” sketch from the Philosophy Department at the fictitious University of Woolloomooloo. They have also done the same with their “Monty Python Australian Table Wines” sketch. However, Australian wines have come a long way since the late sixties and many are now world-beaters, with exports to Europe, the UK, and the US.
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I remember you referring to Ottawa as being the North version of Liverpool for its music scene in the 60s, Jacki. Following is a link to a review of the “Shakin’ All Over” DVD. The Movie includes bonus interviews with Randy Bachman, Cockburn, Burton Cummings, Lane, Lightfoot, Murray McLauchlan, Anne Murray, Buffy Ste-Marie and Sylvia Tyson.
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“Anticipation” was singer-songwriter Carly Simon’s second studio album, released in 1971. The closing song, her version of Kris Kristofferson’s “I’ve Got to Have You”, was released as a single in Australia and reached the top 10 of the Australian charts in 1972. The album cover artwork is a photo of Simon taken at the gates of Queen Mary’s Garden in London’s Regent’s Park.
