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As the lead singer/songwriter for Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty wrote nine Top Ten singles between 1968 and 1972, including the archetypal anthems "Proud Mary" and "Bad Moon Rising." When Creedence broke up in '72, Fogerty embarked on a rocky solo career that was plagued with bitter record company lawsuits and creative blocks, limiting his output to just four studio albums in 25 years.
Fogerty was born in 1945 in Berkeley, Calif. In 1959 he and his brother Tom (who died of tuberculosis in 1990) formed their first band, the Blue Velvets, as an after-school project in their parents' garage. The band transformed into Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1967 and gave the Beatles a run for their money when "Proud Mary" topped the charts in 1969.
Following the breakup of the band, Fogerty released an album of cover songs, The Blue Ridge Rangers, on Creedence's label, Fantasy Records. This was the last amicable contact Fogerty had with Fantasy before the beginning of a decades-long legal battle which, over the years, included charges of copyright infringement, breach of contract, plagiarism and defamation of character.
In 1975 Fogerty was released from his Fantasy contract through a $1 million buyout deal orchestrated by David Geffen that granted Fogerty's U.S. and Canadian recording rights to Asylum Records (and later Warner Bros.). His first solo effort, John Fogerty, remained faithful to the Creedence sound and was a moderate commercial hit.
It was ten years before the release of Fogerty's next album, Centerfield (1985), which produced the smash hit "Old Man Down the Road." The following year, he released Eye of the Zombie,a bleak album whose failure Fogerty blamed on his ongoing legal battles with Fantasy and ex-Creedence bandmates (who were now trying to re-form using the Creedence name). "Creedence had high ideals," Fogerty told a reporter from USA Today, "They turned it into a Las Vegas lounge act and smudged my reputation."
Fogerty seemed to put his bitterness aside to work on the upbeat Blue Moon Swamp, released on Warner Bros. Records in May 1997. The album contains Fogerty's first love song, "Joy of My Life," written for his wife, Julie.
Fogerty's latest, Premonition, was released by Reprise Records in 1998.
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