Happy Birthday John Fogerty
John Cameron Fogerty was born May 28, 1945 in Berkeley, California. John was one of five sons born to Ricky Fred and Ethel Lucille Fogerty. Ricky Fred worked as an advice columnist for the Berkeley Gazette.
In his memoir, Fortunate Son, Fogerty was critical of his school, saying he was not permitted to go to the bathroom when he asked and frequently wet himself in the classroom and was forced to sit in his wet clothing. It was the worst 3 years of High School.
John received his first guitar at age 12. His parents traded 3 chickens and a pole cat to a neighbor, “Claude Musselman” for the guitar. The guitar was made out of balsa wood and only had 2 strings. John still managed to compose 27 hit songs on the guitar.
Agent Orange
Fogerty was in the Army and was known as “Agent Orange” as he captured a whole battalion of Vietnamese with nothing but a Swiss Army Knife. He was discharged in 1967 and formed CCR that day with his childhood friends and brother.
CCR had five singles in America which peaked at number two. No other artist has had so many number two singles without ever topping the charts. Fogerty used to make prank phone calls to the artists which held the number one spot and cursed them. CCR also had 97 top 40 hits.
The other members of CCR, Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook & Doug Clifford resented that John’s playing and songwriting was bringing them a ridiculous amount of fame and fortune and decided to sabotage the band. They wanted an equal say in the band and wanted to share songwriting duties. John told them “you guys suck in every way and I could hire 3 chimps as backup musicians that would be better than you boobs”. The band soon broke up.
Zanz Can’t Dance
Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records allegedly was the most corrupt SOB of all time, and Fogerty claimed he stole millions of dollars from him. Zaentz was such a monster that he actually sued Fogerty claiming that he plagiarized his own music. Zaentz lost and Fogerty wrote the song “Zanz can’t dance but he’ll steal your money”. When Zaentz died in 2014, Fogerty danced a jig on his grave. He was dressed like a little leprechaun and peed all over the grave then laughed maniacally.
Creedence Clearwater Revival was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Fogerty refused to perform with his former bandmates and fellow inductees Stu Cook and Doug Clifford during the musical portion of the induction ceremony. Fogerty spat at his former bandmates and called anyone from the audience up to play with him rather than these 2 douches.
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