Creedence Clearwater Revival’s legendary long-lost recording and footage of their 1970 show at London’s Royal Albert Hall will be available for the first time ever. Ahead of the release, CCR debuted the full live performance of their 1969 hit “Fortunate Son.”
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Available in multiple formats, Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, out Sept. 16, will be released with the documentary concert feature film, Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, directed by Bob Smeaton, who previously helmed The Beatles Anthology and Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsies). Narrated by actor and musician Jeff Bridges, the film features CCR’s John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Doug Clifford, and Stu Cook and a look at the band’s earlier years in El Cerrito, California, and through their rise.
The film features a mix of previously unseen footage, all culminating with their 15-song set on April 14, 1970, at Royal Albert Hall, one of two sold-out nights at the venue—just days after The Beatles broke up and two years before CCR would also part ways. Their performance, which included hits like “Born On The Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” and “Bad Moon Rising,” was met with a 15-minute standing ovation.
The multi-track tapes spent 50 years in storage before being restored and mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, who also worked together on The Beatles’ 50th-anniversary editions of Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, as well as music for the 2019 Elton John biopic Rocketman and Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back series, and mastered by engineer Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios.
On November 14, the album and the film will be available as a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set, limited to 5,000 copies. Individually numbered and housed in a 12” x 12” box, the set includes the Blu-ray of the documentary along with Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on two 45-RPM 180-gram vinyl LPs as well as on CD. A second CD features music from the film, and recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations, including Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs in addition to a reproduction of the original 1970 tour program, a 17” x 24” poster, and a 16-page booklet featuring an excerpt from Bridges’ voice-over script.
Prior to their 1970 concert at Albert Hall, CCR had one of their biggest years in the band’s brief five-year lifespan. Creedence released their seventh and final album together, Mardi Gras, in 1972.
“In only 12 months the band had achieved five Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums [‘Bayou Country,’ ‘Green River,’ ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’] on the American charts, outselling the Beatles,” says Bridges in the film. “They had appeared on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show and played to over a million people across America, including the hundreds of thousands gathered at Woodstock.
Bridges added, “John, Tom, Stu, and Doug may not have had the familiar ring to it of ‘John, Paul, George, and Ringo,’ but Creedence were challenging the Beatles for the title of the biggest group in the world.”
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images/Shorefire Media
