The Rain Falls on Bad Moon Rising (a book review)...

Let me provide a warning right up front... If you're a huge John C. Fogerty (JCF) fan and wish to remain as such, you may not want to read this book. If you're on the fence about Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) and not sure whether they were a great band or simply both a lucky and extraordinarily unlucky one, this book may convince you that the latter is more likely the case. This band biography is simply not a pretty picture which is why Bad Moon Rising is subtitled "The Unauthorized History of CCR."

How bad does JFC come off here? On page 293 of this 316-page treatise, he's quoted as saying: "We call these Beatles songs and I guess we call them Monkees songs, and in my case we call them Creedence songs. But actually, John Fogerty wrote all the songs. So I think now that I'm out in this limelight, I'm going to try and straighten out that misconception."

Ouch! Not only does JFC compare CCR to both Those Guys and The Monkees, but he refers to himself (Himself?) in the third person. The book does, on the plus side, clear up the misconception that JFC refused to appear at the deathbed of his brother Tom. But little else here puts either JFC or the two other surviving CCR members - now in Creedence Clearwater Revisited - in a positive light.

Slogging through this book is like revisiting the worst parts of your own family's history while watching an unpleasant soap opera on the tube. And remember all those stories about Saul Zaentz, founder and head of Berkeley-based Fantasy Records, as the supposed bad guy (which culminated with JCF's solo song Zanz Can't Dance/Vanz Can't Dance)? There's little here dealing with this, which may even be fortunate.

Bottom line, there's more unsaid than said in this not so definitive book which was advertised as covering "30-odd years of legal wrangling, thwarted ambitions and lost potential." Lost potential for the reader, definitely.

For me, it has been more difficult to listen to either JFC or CCR since reading this book. No more unauthorized band biographies for me, as long as I can see the light.

The Question of Favorite Music... (Part III)

Memories...

Music has been called the soundtrack of our lives and we tend to both like and remember songs that we associate with new and special events. In my case, for purposes of illustration, when I think of my first date I hear To Sir With Love by Lulu; first high school dance, Mr. Soul by Buffalo Springfield; first college party, Born On The Bayou by Creedence Clearwater Revival; first USC baseball game, Y.M.C.A. by The Village People; and the most recent wedding that Mrs. Bear and I attended, At Last by Etta James.

We also like songs that remind us of particular places. One morning I got off of a plane in Tucson, and as I climbed into the rental car and turned on the radio I heard Linda Ronstadt singing her cover version of Chuck Berry's Back in the U.S.A. Yes, she is in fact the "local girl made good" in Tucson, but I'll never be able to hear this cover without picturing a bright, sunny, morning in southern Arizona.

Similarly, to this day some of us visualize southern California when we hear the Beach Boys... Interestingly, Metro Media Radio's Million Dollar Weekends in the Southland always began with a Beach Boys song and the phrase: The Beach Boys are southern California, and southern California is the Beach Boys!

In My Life

Each year I used to visit a cousin in Palo Alto, California during the Christmas break period. That's when we would drive our bikes to White Front to buy the latest Beatle album. This is why, to this day, whenever I hear Beatles '65, Beatles VI, or Rubber Soul, I'm transported back to the clear and clean streets of P.A. and nowhere else. And this is probably why these are my favorite Beatle albums.

Invincible

The smart people who make movies, of course, know all about the connections we make between what we see (the visual) and what we hear (the audio). They understand that if viewing a select film is pleasurable, we'll want to own the music we associate with the positive visual images. The music then serves as the literal soundtrack of an acquired - if artificial - life.

I've Got A Name

What's quite amazing to me is how a film can not only cement our musical preferences - and don't we feel superior when one of our favorite songs is used in a film - but it can also cause us to re-examine and even reverse our preferences...

I was never much of a fan of the music of Jim Croce. That is, until I saw the film Invincible... The movie begins with Croce's I've Got A Name being played behind the highly visual opening scene. As soon as the film finished, I decided I wanted to hear more of Croce's work.

So today it is not unusual for me to play Mrs. Bear's copy of his original greatest hits CD. I'm also considering adding the new remastered and expanded 20-track collection of Croce's best to our music collection.

What a turnaround: I went from dis-interested to being interested and now very interested simply because a Jim Croce song was used in a key scene of an inspiring film!

Photographs and Memories

Jim Croce's music happened to be included on the soundtrack because he was born and raised in Philadelphia, and Invincible is the true story of Vince Papale, who went from East Philly bartender to member of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. On such a slim reed, I rediscovered and finally heard Croce's fine music.

Next in this series: How movies have heightened and revived musical careers and legends.