“I don’t play with those guys”: Why John Fogerty declined to play for President Bill Clinton
Anti-war protests, hippie love-ins, and psychedelic experimentation: the 1960s were a diverse and exciting time for American society and culture. Throughout that expansive period, the record players and radios of this bold new generation of Americans were blasting out the sounds of John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival. However, the history of the band is almost as tumultuous and argumentative as the political landscape, which Fogerty often wrote about.
Instrumental in popularising the style of swamp rock and penning multiple anti-war anthems which soundtracked the protest movement against the Vietnam War, Creedence Clearwater Revival were among the most important and iconic outfits of the 1960s. Enduring classics like ‘Fortunate Son’, ‘Proud Mary’, and ‘Bad Moon Rising’ typified the era, and continue to speak to multiple generations of music fans to this day. Despite promoting class consciousness and unity, the band itself was frequently divided.
The root cause of the tensions within CCR resulted from the ever-deteriorating relationship between John Fogerty and his brother, rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty. Sibling rivalries are no uncommon in rock and roll – just ask The Kinks, Oasis, The Bee Gees, or the Everly Brothers – but the spat at the heart of Creedence seemed much more bitter and long-lasting. In fact, the pair remained at odds until Tom Fogerty’s death in 1990, at the age of only 48.
Ultimately, Tom Fogerty resigned from the band in 1971, which marked one domino in a chain effect which eventually led to their disbandment one year later. The break-up did not, however, repair any bridges between John Fogerty and his former bandmates. In fact, the wedge between the songwriter and his ex-band widened when they sold off the rights to their music to Fantasy Records, who also attempted to prevent Fogerty from releasing some of his early solo work.
CCR’s contract with Fantasy Records and Saul Zaentz was famously restrictive and cast a cloud over the band’s discography for Fogerty, who refused to perform anything from the band’s repertoire for a number of years after their demise. Even after decades had passed, the guitarist still refused all calls for reunion shows or anniversary tours, citing the various legal battles with Fantasy Records along with the tumultuous relationship with Tom Fogerty.
Still, the band were offered some lucrative opportunities to reunite, most notably the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Fogerty rejected the offer immediately, and you would be forgiven for assuming that the guitarist refused as a result of his political defiance and anti-authority standpoint. In actual fact, Fogerty was a supporter of Clinton’s presidency – the Democrat even sent the musician a letter of congratulations in 1998 when he earned a Grammy Award for the album Zombie.
In actual fact, Forgerty rejected the offer due to his bitterness about the band and subsequent legal battles with Zeantz and Fantasy Records. It was this reason that Fogerty also rejected pleas to perform with his old bandmates at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one year prior. “When the Hall of Fame called in late 1992, they said, ‘We are going to induct CCR into the Hall of Fame. Would you perform with the other band members?’ I said, ‘No,’” the songwriter remembered in his memoir.
“I’m just not going to stand on a stage with those people three in a row, play our songs and be presented as a band — particularly because these guys sold their rights in that band to my worst enemy [Saul Zaentz],” he continued. “After Bill Clinton was elected, they wanted Creedence to play the inauguration in January 1993, and I had rejected it. I said, “I don’t play with those guys. We will never play as a band again.”
In more recent years, Fogerty’s attitude towards the band has cooled somewhat, making repeated comments about being open to the possibility of a reunion with the surviving members of the band – Doug Clifford and Stu Cook – but it seems to be too little too late for his former comrades. At this point, over five decades since their disbandment, a reunion seems unlikely for CCR, but stranger things have happened. Perhaps the group are waiting out for another Democratic Presidential nomination…
