Creedence Clearwater Revival – ‘Down On The Corner’
- Writer: John Fogerty
- Producer: John Fogerty
- Recorded: Early 1969
- Released: November 1969
- Players:
John Fogerty — vocals, guitar
Tom Fogerty — guitar
Stu Cook — bass
Doug “Cosmo” Clifford — drums - Album: Willie And The Poor Boys (Fantasy, 1969)
- Also On:
Creedence Gold (Fantasy, 1972)
Chronicle, Vol. 1 (Fantasy, 1976)
The Concert (Fantasy, 1980)
Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy, 2001) - The album title Willie And The Poor Boys was actually taken from a line in the song “Down On The Corner.”
- The album was the third million-seller for Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR).
- “Down On The Corner” was first released as the flip-side to the blue-collar anthem “Fortunate Son.”
- “Down On The Corner” was the flipside of “Fortunate Son” in more ways than one. Like many of the group’s hits, “Fortunate Son” had political overtones and urgent social conscience. “Down On The Corner,” however, was upbeat and apolitical, concerned more with stamping feet than social change. It peaked at Number Three on the pop chart.
FAST FORWARD:
- Between 1968 and 1970, CCR released six albums. Five of the albums eventually went platinum, and the band nabbed seven gold singles in the process.
- CCR went through a nasty breakup in 1972, a mere four years after their first album. The group only reunited for two low-profile instances — Tom Fogerty’s wedding in 1980, and a school reunion in 1983.
- John Fogerty‘s relationship with his old bandmates seems irreparably strained. He refused to play with them when CCR was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and he battled unsuccessfully in court to keep bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford from performing as Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
- Tom Fogerty died of tuberculosis in 1990 at age 48.
- In 1987, Fogerty ended his boycott of not playing any CCR songs in his live act, when he did eight of them at a show for Vietnam veterans. He has since performed them on his tours.