John Fogerty Biography Quotes 27 Report mistakes

Early Life
John Cameron Fogerty was born on May 28, 1945, in Berkeley, California, and grew up in nearby El Cerrito. In the musically fertile Bay Area, he developed an early fascination with rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country sounds. While attending El Cerrito High School he began performing with classmates Doug Clifford and Stu Cook; his older brother Tom Fogerty, already a working musician, became an important early mentor and collaborator. The four would form a bond that would define American rock in the late 1960s.

Forming a Band
Fogerty, Clifford, Cook, and Tom Fogerty first worked as the Blue Velvets, then recorded briefly as the Golliwogs under the Fantasy Records umbrella. During this period, Fogerty honed his songwriting and vocal approach, a searing tenor coupled with sharp, economical guitar lines. After Fantasy Records leadership under Saul Zaentz reorganized the label, the band adopted the name Creedence Clearwater Revival and began a run of singles and albums that made them fixtures on radio and onstage.

Creedence Clearwater Revival
From 1968 through 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival issued a torrent of hits: Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Fortunate Son, Green River, Born on the Bayou, Down on the Corner, and more. Fogerty was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and lead guitarist, and often served as producer and arranger, creating a lean, swampy sound distinct from the psychedelic music surrounding them in San Francisco. The group played the Woodstock festival in 1969, though Fogerty, dissatisfied with how their late-night set translated on film, kept CCR out of the original movie. Internally, tensions grew over creative control and business matters. Tom Fogerty departed in 1971, and the trio of John Fogerty, Stu Cook, and Doug Clifford released Mardi Gras in 1972, after which the band dissolved.

Legal Struggles and Separation
The breakup did not end the conflict. Fogerty's disputes with Fantasy Records and Saul Zaentz over contracts and publishing would last decades. He resisted performing Creedence songs for a long stretch, seeing them as tied up in unfavorable deals. Later, when Stu Cook and Doug Clifford formed the touring act Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Fogerty objected to the use of the name, underscoring the enduring fractures among the former bandmates. The saddest chapter came with Tom Fogerty's death in 1990; the brothers had been estranged over legal and loyalty issues connected to CCR's business affairs, a divide John later described with great regret.

Early Solo Work
Fogerty's first major post-CCR statement was The Blue Ridge Rangers (1973), a set of country and roots covers on which he played nearly every instrument. John Fogerty (1975) followed, featuring Rockin' All Over the World and Almost Saturday Night, songs that affirmed his concise songwriting and classic rock sensibility. An intended 1976 album, often referred to as Hoodoo, was shelved, and he largely withdrew from releasing new music as legal battles and burnout mounted.

Comeback and Courtroom Precedent
Fogerty returned emphatically with Centerfield (1985), again playing most instruments and delivering hits like The Old Man Down the Road, Rock and Roll Girls, and the baseball anthem Centerfield. He clashed with Saul Zaentz over two fronts: a defamation complaint that led Fogerty to alter the title Zanz Kant Danz to Vanz Kant Danz, and a copyright suit alleging The Old Man Down the Road infringed on his own Run Through the Jungle. Fogerty prevailed at trial on the musical claim. A separate fight over legal fees reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. (1994); the Court's ruling in his favor established an important standard that prevailing defendants in copyright cases could receive attorney's fees under the same equitable principles as plaintiffs.

Renewal and Recognition
With his personal and professional life steadied, and with crucial support from Julie Fogerty, whom he married in the early 1990s and who became central to his management and creative renewal, he reengaged the stage. Blue Moon Swamp (1997) earned a Grammy Award and led to the live set Premonition (1998), where Fogerty once again embraced classic Creedence material alongside his solo catalog. In 2004 he issued Deja Vu All Over Again, reflecting on war and political turmoil with the same plainspoken urgency that marked Fortunate Son decades earlier. Revival (2007) signaled a full-circle reclamation of his rock identity, followed by The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again (2009), and Wrote a Song for Everyone (2013), a collaborative album revisiting his songs with artists from multiple generations. His sons Shane and Tyler began appearing onstage and in the studio with him, an intergenerational handoff that also deepened the family's musical imprint.

Memoir, Family, and Later Work
Fogerty's memoir, Fortunate Son (2015), candidly recounts his upbringing, CCR's meteoric rise, the rifts with Tom Fogerty, and the long fight with Fantasy and Saul Zaentz. During the 2020 shutdowns, he and his family performed as Fogerty's Factory, sharing home-recorded versions of classics and issuing a collection that reintroduced his music to new listeners. In 2023, he announced a landmark deal that finally gave him a controlling interest in the global publishing for his Creedence-era compositions, a resolution that symbolically closed a half-century of struggle over ownership.

Legacy
John Fogerty's body of work unites terse storytelling with indelible hooks, a blend of roadhouse guitar, gospel shouts, and country polish that made his songs part of American vernacular music. The characters in Bad Moon Rising and Born on the Bayou feel mythic, yet they are drawn with the economy of a reporter's notebook, and the moral clarity of Fortunate Son retains its bite. As the creative engine of Creedence Clearwater Revival alongside Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook, and Doug Clifford, and as a solo artist who reemerged after daunting legal battles, he shaped a distinctly American sound. Inducted with CCR into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, he has continued to tour widely, often with Shane and Tyler adding guitars and harmonies that echo his own early partnership with Tom. From Bay Area garages to festival main stages, from courtroom showdowns to family singalongs, Fogerty's arc is one of persistence, authorship, and a songwriter's unwavering belief that a great three-minute record can outlast any storm.

Our collection contains 27 quotes who is written by John, under the main topics: Music - Work Ethic - Romantic.