John Fogerty is taking a page out of Taylor Swift’s book. The former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman revealed what prompted him to record his latest album, Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years.
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The album recreates several of CCR’s biggest hits, much like Swift did with her early albums before she was able to buy back the original masters.
“I wanted to call it Taylor’s Version,” Fogerty told Rolling Stone in an interview. “I lobbied very much to the record company.”
He made the painstaking re-recordings by isolating individual instrumental and vocal tracks on each song to get it just right.
“The first five or six people I’ve talked to who’ve listened to it all say it sounds ‘fresher,’” Fogerty said. “Maybe what they’re saying is it’s clearer, or the fidelity is better or something? That may be something I hadn’t even counted on, but there’s more dimension to it, more depth.”
Why John Fogerty Decided to Re-Record His Songs
He made the decision to re-create the tracks after he a acquired majority interest in the publishing rights to his CCR songs in 2023.
On top of that, he was reunited with the Rickenbacker guitar he used while in CCR. He gave the instrument away in the ’70s. Then, in the ’90s, he opted not to buy it back for financial reasons and due to the negative memories associated with the guitar.
“I was hurt. I was damaged,” he said of why he opted not to purchase the instrument. His wife, Julie Fogerty, knew better, though, and decided to purchase the guitar for her husband in 2015. That decision led to healing and, subsequently, his forthcoming LP, which is due out Aug. 22.
“I started as a kid full of joy doing music. But, during the time of Creedence, and shortly after that, it became certainly not joyful,” he said. “The idea [behind Legacy] was to reconnect and feel that way about everything again. The guy who couldn’t even stand to look at his own guitar in the ’90s or beyond would have never done that.”
John Fogerty Reveals Why Fans Should Embrace His New Album
As for why fans should purchase an album that was purposefully made to sound note-for-note like the songs’ original recordings, Fogerty said, “Number one, there’s probably no chance in the world I will ever have any part of the ownership of the old masters. This is kind of the Taylor Swift part. But another thing is, I think there’s a joy quite evident in the music that may not be there in the original versions.”
“When you’re 80 years old, you finally are given the special key to the kingdom,” he added. ”I guess you can do whatever you want. And I decided this is what I wanted to do, to give myself a present.”
Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images
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