The pressure of avoiding the dreaded “sophomore slump” weighs heavy on a band’s second release, especially when the debut album performs exceptionally well. Figuring out how to follow up on that initial success and prove it wasn’t just lightning in a bottle is no small feat, which is something Creedence Clearwater Revival was learning the hard way in the late 1960s. CCR was already riding high on their Top 20 single, “Susie Q”, from 1968. But as any one-hit wonder could attest, the band’s success depended solely on what they came up with next.
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However, before the band could worry about release schedules, promotion, and record sales, they had to figure out what, exactly, they would be selling in the year following “Susie Q” and their eponymous debut. According to CCR founder John Fogerty, that’s when the boat really started to take on water.
In a 1993 interview with Rolling Stone, Fogerty said that during the making of the first album, “Everybody had listened to my advice. I don’t think anybody thought too much about it. But in making the second album, Bayou Country, we had a real confrontation. Everybody wanted to sing, write, make up their own arrangements.”
Why ‘Bayou Country’ Foreshadowed the Band’s Split Three Years Later
That all the members of Creedence Clearwater Revival would want a shot at creative input now that their platform had grown so much isn’t surprising. But John Fogerty didn’t want to do it that way—not after they had already tapped into what was working. The songwriter told Rolling Stone he didn’t want to get experimental and undefined just because they got high on the charts with “Susie Q”. “I looked at it like a stepping stone,” Fogerty said. “I said to the other guys, ‘If we blow it, the spotlight’s going to move over there to The Eagles or somebody.’”
Fogerty put his foot down about maintaining creative control on Bayou Country, and he kept it that way. He wrote every track on the band’s sophomore release, with the exception of “Good Golly, Miss Molly”. “I didn’t want to go back to the carwash,” Fogerty explained. “I basically said, ‘This band is going to make the best record it can make, and that means I’m going to do things the way I want to do ‘em.’ That sounds very egotistical, but that’s what happened.”
For that reason and others, Fogerty called Bayou Country—and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s existence—a “time bomb.” The seeds of discontent that were sown during the making of this sophomore release eventually led to the band’s dissolution in the early 1970s. To Fogerty’s credit, Bayou Country was the success Fogerty wanted it to be. The album’s only single, “Proud Mary”, garnered the band a No. 2 spot on the Hot 100, their highest ranking thus far. Bayou Country also made the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, peaking at No. 7.
Was Fogerty overbearing? Perhaps, and he’s admitted as much. But was he right? Technically, yes.
Photo by Charlie Gillett Collection/Redferns
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