Proud Mary
Listening to some Creedence Clearwater Revival this afternoon.
Some of you may remember “Proud Mary.” I vividly recall seeing Ike and Tina Turner perform “Proud Mary” at a small venue in the 70’s. Wow !!
Some John Fogerty History from Wikipedia:
The song came together on the day that John Fogerty got his discharge papers from the US Army. Fogerty had been drafted in 1966 and was serving at Fort Bragg and Fort Lee. His discharge papers came in 1967.
"The Army and Creedence overlapped, so I was 'that hippie with a record on the radio.' I'd been trying to get out of the Army, and on the steps of my apartment house sat a diploma-sized letter from the government. It sat there for a couple of days, right next to my door.
One day, I saw the envelope and bent down to look at it, noticing it said 'John Fogerty.' I went into the house, opened the thing up, and saw that it was my honorable discharge from the Army. I was finally out! This was 1968 and people were still dying. I was so happy, I ran out into my little patch of lawn and turned cartwheels. Then I went into my house, picked up my guitar and started strumming. 'Left a good job in the city' and then several good lines came out of me immediately. I had the chord changes, the minor chord where it says, 'Big wheel keep on turnin'/Proud Mary keep on burnin''. By the time I hit 'Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river,' I knew I had written my best song. It vibrated inside me. When we rehearsed it, I felt like Cole Porter."
So it was that an all-American classic was born from the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the late 1960s. Fogerty suspected right away that his "Tin Pan Alley" song was a radio-friendly hit, and he was right. The song hit #2 in the US, reached #8 in the UK, and #1 in Austria.
(70-200/2.8, 1/1000 @ f/8, ISO 10000, edited to taste)
Proud Mary
Listening to some Creedence Clearwater Revival this afternoon.
Some of you may remember “Proud Mary.” I vividly recall seeing Ike and Tina Turner perform “Proud Mary” at a small venue in the 70’s. Wow !!
Some John Fogerty History from Wikipedia:
The song came together on the day that John Fogerty got his discharge papers from the US Army. Fogerty had been drafted in 1966 and was serving at Fort Bragg and Fort Lee. His discharge papers came in 1967.
"The Army and Creedence overlapped, so I was 'that hippie with a record on the radio.' I'd been trying to get out of the Army, and on the steps of my apartment house sat a diploma-sized letter from the government. It sat there for a couple of days, right next to my door.
One day, I saw the envelope and bent down to look at it, noticing it said 'John Fogerty.' I went into the house, opened the thing up, and saw that it was my honorable discharge from the Army. I was finally out! This was 1968 and people were still dying. I was so happy, I ran out into my little patch of lawn and turned cartwheels. Then I went into my house, picked up my guitar and started strumming. 'Left a good job in the city' and then several good lines came out of me immediately. I had the chord changes, the minor chord where it says, 'Big wheel keep on turnin'/Proud Mary keep on burnin''. By the time I hit 'Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river,' I knew I had written my best song. It vibrated inside me. When we rehearsed it, I felt like Cole Porter."
So it was that an all-American classic was born from the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the late 1960s. Fogerty suspected right away that his "Tin Pan Alley" song was a radio-friendly hit, and he was right. The song hit #2 in the US, reached #8 in the UK, and #1 in Austria.
(70-200/2.8, 1/1000 @ f/8, ISO 10000, edited to taste)