#193 Creedence Clearwater Revival, 'Willy and the Poor Boys' (1969)

Previously #309

1969 was an extremely prolific year for Creedence Clearwater Revival. ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’ was their third full length album to be released that year. Over and above a landmark performance at Woodstock plus a slew of #2 singles and a #1 album and a performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. John Fogerty was worried that if the band slipped out of the charts they would be forgotten, and so he pushed his band mates to continuously work.

The album opens with ‘Down On The Corner,’ a song about Willy and the Poor Boys, a fictional alter-ego of CCR. The band almost promoted the record in character, but dropped that idea. The album actually includes one of my favourite songs of all time, definitely one of my favourite anti-Vietnam songs. The song was inspired by the wedding of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s grandson to Richard Nixon’s daughter; “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.” I always found the inclusion of ‘Cotton Fields’ on this record to be a bit off. Originally written by Lead Belly, it’s a song written from a black person’s perspective of growing up and subsequently working in the cotton fields of Louisiana. It feels worlds away from the Californian-born John Fogerty’s upbringing. The rest of the record has some solid songwriting and memorable riffs. I enjoyed the album, but for me it’ll always be about ‘Fortunate Son.’

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