Creedence Clearwater Revisited

The idea of a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band formed by ex-CCR members Stu Cook and Doug Clifford is either the biggest obscenity in '60s rock revivals, or the only fully musically just and honest cover band phenomenon there is. To people who take rock & roll seriously, the existence of Creedence Clearwater Revisited is probably an abomination -- the equivalent of Paul and Ringo going back on the road leading a Beatles cover band, complete with replacements for John and George. But before anyone tunes out on this, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford have as much right to capitalize on the Creedence Clearwater Revival repertory as anyone other than John Fogerty -- yes, he wrote the stuff, but they were the rhythm section, and as good a rhythm section as any American white rock & roll band of the '60s ever had, on songs where the beat, not to mention the textures of the bass and the drums, counted for a lot. And they were with Fogerty and his brother Tom from the beginning, playing lots of thankless gigs for short-end money before lightning struck in 1968. And since Fogerty kept this repertory at more than arm's length for more than 25 years after their breakup, and the songs were more popular than ever, it was almost inevitable that a CCR cover band would emerge. The unexpected aspect is that it was done by former CCR members. Following the breakup of CCR in 1972, Cook and Clifford, who'd been friends since junior high, formed a production company together. Clifford later joined the latter-day Sir Douglas Quintet, while Cook joined a group of ex-members of the Doobie Brothers in forming the country-rock outfit Southern Pacific. They kept fairly low profiles as working musicians, although they were still busier musically than Fogerty, who, for a...