SOUNDTRACK: FOGERTY’S FACTORY – JOHN FOGERTY + FAMILY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #14 (April 24, 2020).
I’ve never given much thought to John Fogerty. I like some CCR songs; dislike others. He’s a legend for sure, but I never thought about him. I certainly never thought about whether he had children (much less grown children).
Watching this Tiny Desk where Fogerty and his three grown kids are playing along to some utterly classic songs is pretty weird. Imagine if your dad wrote “Centerfield”? It’s not my favorite song. I don’t even especially like it, but I’ve heard it a million times.
And there you on video playing guitar and bass with your dad who wrote the song. Is that surreal and wild or is it just what dad does?
When John Fogerty breaks out his baseball bat guitar and swings into that famous guitar lick from “Centerfield” to open his Tiny Desk (home) concert, I can almost taste the Cracker Jacks. Welcome to Fogerty’s Factory, the tricked-out basement where the Fogerty Family (John, his sons Tyler (mustache) and Shane (no mustache), and his daughter Kelsy) make music in these quarantined times.
Fogerty jokes about his own tiny desk.
His desk is the road case his band Creedence Clearwater Revival used when they played Woodstock, and John shows off a guitar he played at the festival as well.
After “Centerfield” he plays
three of his CCR classics from 50 years ago (still singing in the same key), surrounded by family and sending out words of encouragement to all of us.
I have a hard time believing he wrote “Down on the Corner” if only because it seems like a song that’s been around forever (which it has).
It’s amusing hoe much he acts like a grandpa (which he just might be), when talking to us and to his daughter (who has wise words to say about missing her graduation).
I don’t really know “Long As I Can See the Light.” Maybe I do, it sounds vaguely familiar, but all CCR songs sound vaguely the same (his voice is unmistakable–and he still sounds pretty good). he plays organ on this song, which is a slight change of sound.
“Proud Mary” is another song that I just can’t believe he wrote. Can you imagine being the guy who wrote that song? Again, not a song I especially like, but everyone has sung it. Everyone knows it. It seems like it was a blues standard or something. But this guy wrote it.
That’s pretty wild.
[READ: April 26, 2020] “Bedtime Story”
Ezra Washington’s wife walked in on him telling a story to their younger child. It was about the time he was rollerblading and Julia Roberts crashed into him.
At first she doesn’t realize that he is talking about Julia Roberts, she thinks he is talking about her (“That laugh you’d know anywhere”). But none of the details sound familiar. It’s when the child says, “She’s the one that plays the mom…with the big teeth and the long brown hair?” that she realizes it’s the Julia Roberts story.
The dad confirms and the child reiterates, “Julia Roberts went right between your legs?”
“Yes, but don’t repeat that.”
She was the biggest movie star in the world. Back then. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 