The classic rock song John Fogerty thinks nobody will ever match: “He cut out his own niche”
Even though the very notion of what constitutes ‘classic rock’ is a nebulous concept, there’s something about the work of John Fogerty that seems undeniably appropriate for the terminology.
His career with Creedence Clearwater Revival and as a solo artist has produced many hits that feel ‘classic’ in multiple ways, from the fact that they’ve had an enduring legacy that continues to this day, but also twinned with the fact that these songs sound like they couldn’t possibly have come from any other moment in time.
Songs like ‘Proud Mary’, ‘Fortunate Son’ and ‘Up Around The Bend’ tapped into the feeling of the ‘60s and ‘70s stylistically and thematically, using the vehicle of charged-up rock and roll to spread anti-war sentiments and socially conscious lyricism that played on many of the fears and anxieties that were being shared by Americans during the period.
Fogerty’s output was hugely influential to other future rock outfits who continued on in a similar vein, but what they did was elaborate on what he and CCR had done and brought it into the modern era, whether through changing the subject matter to more contemporary themes or simply employing new styles that were pushing the genre forward rather than letting it stagnate with outmoded styles.
However, CCR and Fogerty couldn’t possibly have existed without the stars of rock and roll from the previous generation who laid out all of the groundwork for them to have a platform. The 1950s were a significant decade for change in the landscape of popular music due to the emergence of a style that ended up becoming commonplace in the charts and wider contemporary music sphere, and without any of these brave trailblazers, rock music would not exist in its current form, let alone any of its interim iterations.
Because the first wave of rock and roll created a platform for all future incarnations to thrive upon, there’s a good reason why some of the artists and songs from this era are still hailed as the greatest of all time, given how influential they proved to be.
During a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, when Fogerty was arguably at the peak of his popularity, he claimed that one particular artist had cemented himself in history forever as a result of his work during the formative years of rock and roll. “Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t have that many hits,” he argued, “But his influence, nostalgically anyway, far surpasses what he actually did. Because he sort of cut out his own niche, and that’s his own from now on.”
However, he went on to state how another artist could be seen as being on par with Lewis, and was responsible for having written perhaps the most timeless rock and roll song of all time. “Carl Perkins, same thing,” he added. “There’ll never be another ‘Blue Suede Shoes’.”
While other versions of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ are arguably more famous and celebrated than Perkins’ original, such as the hit that Elvis Presley had with it in 1956, this only hammers home the point that Fogerty makes. The fact that people still want to cover or even listen to it goes to show just how important it is to the history of rock and roll, and his assertion that there will never be another song to have the same impact is hard to argue with.
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