“Strange Fruit” is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims.

Barney Josephson, the founder of Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, New York’s first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday. Other reports say that Robert Gordon, who was directing Billie Holiday’s show at Cafe Society, heard the song at Madison Square Garden and introduced it to her.

Holiday first performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation but, because its imagery reminded her of her father, she continued to sing the piece, making it a regular part of her live performances.

Because of the power of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday’s face; and there would be no encore. During the musical introduction, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about the song, but the company feared reaction by record retailers in the South, as well as negative reaction from affiliates of its co-owned radio network, CBS. When Holiday’s producer John Hammond also refused to record it, she turned to her friend Milt Gabler, whose Commodore label produced alternative jazz. Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” for him a cappella, and moved him to tears.

Columbia gave Holiday a one-session release from her contract so she could record it; Frankie Newton’s eight-piece Cafe Society Band was used for the session. Because Gabler worried the song was too short, he asked pianist Sonny White to improvise an introduction. On the recording, Holiday starts singing after 70 seconds.

In 1978, Holiday’s version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Lyricist E. Y. Harburg referred to the song as a “historical document.”

Hits: 85

“Hurt So Bad” was written by Teddy Randazzo, Bobby Weinstein, and Bobby Hart. When DCP Records head Don Costa asked for another hit for Little Anthony, Hart, Randazzo and Weinstein went to a conference room between sets and came up with “Hurt So Bad,” a song about a man who feels intense pain when he sees his former love. Bobby Hart went on to tremendous songwriting success with Tommy Boyce, coming up with many hit songs for The Monkees. Hart considers “Hurt So Bad” his crowning achievement as a songwriter, although he knows that he’ll always be remembered for his hits with The Monkees.

In 1957, a doo-wop group known as the Chesters existed with members Clarence Collins, Tracy Lord, Nathaniel Rodgers, and Ronald Ross. Anthony Gourdine, a former member of the Duponts, joined as lead vocalist and Ernest Wright took over from Ross. Changing their name to the Imperials, they signed with End Records in 1958. Their first single was “Tears on My Pillow”, which was an instant hit. (While playing this song, D.J. Alan Freed, who also popularized the term “Rock and Roll”, came up with the name “Little Anthony” which the group adopted).

Throughout their careers the members of the Imperials, as well as their record label, changed frequently. Anthony Gourdine twice tried a solo carerr, with minimal success, and a group of revolving members using the name are still performing. Imperials founder Collins, now retired, has been replaced by Johnny Britt and original members Wright and Gourdine round out the group. When the group is not touring, Gourdine does stage plays and currently also has a one-man show, which he is currently doing to support his recently released biography, and to celebrate his 55-plus years as a performer.

“Hurt So Bad”, a powerful, dramatic ballad recording, has become one of The Imperials’ best-known songs, and has inspired numerous cover versions. Linda Ronstadt had a Top 10 hit with her cover version in 1980, as did The Lettermen who took the song to number twelve in September 1969.

Little Anthony and the Imperials received the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 1993. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006. On January 14, 2009, it was announced that Little Anthony and the Imperials had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to Anthony, Wright, Collins, and Strain, original Imperials member Nathaniel “Nate” Rogers was also present to be honored. Deceased original Imperials member Tracey Lord was inducted posthumously; his sons accepted his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on his behalf. Sammy Strain is one of the few artists in popular music history who is a double Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, having been inducted with the O’Jays in 2005 and the Imperials in 2009. In 2018, Little Anthony and the Imperials were inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Detroit.

Hits: 62

“We’re an American Band” became Grand Funk Railroad’s first #1 single. It was sung by Brewer rather than Farner, who usually took lead vocals. It is the 99th song on VH1’s 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs.

Brewer’s lyrics are somewhat autobiographical, detailing the band’s recent tour and their energetic live performances. In the song, the band mentions traveling through Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as stopping to party with four groupies that sneak into their hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. The lyrics also mention “sweet sweet Connie”, which is a reference to legendary groupie Connie Hamzy.

Grand Funk was touring with the British group Humble Pie in early 1973. After one performance, the two groups were drinking in a bar when they began arguing over the merits of British versus American rock. Grand Funk drummer Don Brewer stood up and after bragging about American rock heroes such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley, proudly announced, “We’re an American band!”. Thus inspired, he wrote the song the next morning; by late 1973, it was the top-selling song in the world. A video was also made, showing the band playing the song as well as engaging in activities such as basketball, dirtbike riding, and watersports.

The original single was released on gold transparent vinyl.

In celebration of America’s Independence Day, here’s a live version from 1974!

Hits: 88

Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley began their careers as solo folk artists on the coffee house circuit in the early 1960s.  Both native mid-westerns (Oklahoman and Ohioan respectively), they first met in 1964 at the Blind Owl coffee house in Kent, Ohio.  It would be three more years before they would team up, and during those three years the two crossed paths at clubs on the folk circuit, and each tried their hand in other musical collaborations that didn’t pan out.

In 1965 Michael Brewer migrated to Los Angeles following the emerging west coast music scene. Around this time, Tom Shipley arrived in L.A. and looked up his acquaintance from the folk circuit.  Tom rented a house around the corner from Michael’s house, and soon they began writing songs together. Brewer eventually accepted a job as a staff songwriter at Good Sam Records, a publishing offshoot of the newly formed A&M Records. When Shipley was subsequently hired as staff writer for A&M in 1967, their partnership began as a songwriting collaboration.

A&M Records soon recognized that Michael & Tom’s demo recordings exhibited a unique sound and style of their own, so they green lighted them to record an album, Down In L.A.  A&M brought in the best musicians in the L.A. to play on the album.  But even with a soon to be released debut album and mutual friends who were starting to make it big in bands, such as The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Association, Michael and Tom so disliked their life in L.A. that they decided to move back to the Midwest as soon as the record was recorded.

Tom described their decision to settle in Missouri as one of fortunate circumstance:

There was a music scene built up in Kansas City, and Michael and I used to come during Christmas and it was great. There would be clouds in the sky — you don’t see clouds in LA, just the haze. We really didn’t care for L.A. very much. We had just had enough, and figured there had to be a better way to make music, without living there.  So we left California, and ended up coming back to the heartland. We ended up in Kansas City and started a management/production company with some friends.

After settling in Kansas City, they released four albums in the space of four years: Weeds, Tarkio, Shake Off The Demon, and Rural Space. It was on the third album Tarkio (from a regular gig they played in Tarkio, Missouri) that they released the song One Toke Over the Line, which they wrote as a joke while preparing backstage for a performance.

The incident that sparked this song happened at the Vanguard in Kansas City, Missouri. The band was playing the show because, in seeking to escape the LA music scene, they started a tour of their Midwest homelands. Shipley reports that he was given a block of hash and told to take two hits. He ignored the advice and instead took three. Shipley recounts in The Vinyl Dialogues:

I go out of the dressing room -- I’m also a banjo player, but I didn’t have one, so I was playing my guitar -- and Michael (Brewer) came in and I said, ‘Jesus, Michael, I’m one toke over the line.’ And to be perfect honest, I don’t remember if Michael was with me when I took that hit or not. I remember it as ‘not’; I think Michael remembers it as ‘yes.’ And he started to sing to what I was playing, and I chimed in and boom, we had the line.

Brewer also remembers the occasion:

I just cracked up,” he said. “I thought it was hysterical. And right on the spot, we just started singing, ‘One toke over the line, sweet Jesus,’ and that was about it; then we went onstage.

It took Brewer & Shipley on quite a roller coaster ride that year.  Just as it was peaking on the charts, the Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew labeled Brewer & Shipley subversive to America’s youth and then strong-armed the FCC to pull “One Toke Over The Line” from the airwaves.  They made President Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List,” a badge of honor which they continue to wear proudly today.

In the early 70’s not everyone knew what the word “toke” meant and additionally many misinterpreted their iconic song because of the “sweet Jesus” lyrics. This probably accounted for several country artists recording “One Toke” in 1972 and was definitely responsible for “One Toke Over The Line” being covered on the Lawrence Welk Show by the wholesome-looking couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale (not the surf guitar legend), who clearly had NO clue what a toke was.

At the conclusion of the performance of the song, Welk remarked, without any hint of irony, “There you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.” This caused Michael Brewer to comment:

“The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, named us personally as a subversive to American youth, but at exactly the same time Lawrence Welk performed the crazy thing and introduced it as a gospel song. That shows how absurd it really is. Of course, we got more publicity than we could have paid for.”

Because of their broad appeal, they became a favored support act for major tours, and shared the stage with a diverse list of artists, including: Elton John, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Electric Light Orchestra, Blood Sweat & Tears, James Taylor, Stephen Stills, The Beach Boys, Loggins & Messina, Linda Ronstadt, John Sebastian, and The Ozark Mountain Daredevils among others.

As of late 2019 they were still performing. At present, Michael Brewer lives outside of Branson, Missouri. Tom Shipley lives in Rolla, Missouri, where he is part of the staff of Missouri University of Science & Technology. He is semi-retired as manager of video productions and continues to work on special video productions for the university. Michael Brewer was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame on December 1, 2018. He joins contemporaries such as, Hoyt Axton, Leon Russell, Jimmy Webb, B.J. Thomas, Tom Paxton, J.J. Cale, Elvin Bishop, and Vince Gill. The Hall also has some legendary members like Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, Patti Page, Gene Autry, Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys.

Hits: 107

This was written by Jimmy Webb, who also wrote Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Galveston.” He was driving along the Kansas-Oklahoma border when he saw a lonesome telephone lineman working atop a telephone pole. Webb drove past a seemingly endless line of telephone poles, each looking exactly the same as the last. Then, in the distance, he noticed the silhouette of a solitary lineman atop a pole. He described it as “the picture of loneliness”. Webb then “put himself atop that pole and put that phone in his hand” as he considered what the lineman was saying into the receiver. Glen Campbell added in a statement to the Dallas Observer that Webb wrote the song about his first love affair with a woman who married someone else.

Jimmy Webb explained how he puts himself into the shoes of the subjects of this songs:

I’ve never worked with high-tension wires or anything like that. My characters were all ordinary guys. They were all blue-collar guys who did ordinary jobs. As Billy Joel likes to say, which is pretty accurate, he said, ‘They’re ordinary people thinking extraordinary thoughts.’ I always appreciated that comment, because I thought it was very close to what I was doing or what I was trying to do. And they came from ordinary towns. They came from places like Galveston and Wichita and places like that.

In late 1967 Jimmy was just about the hottest songwriter in L.A., based on two consecutive monster hits: The Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up And Away,” and Glen Campbell’s “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” “Phoenix” had been on the charts for six months, although Jimmy and Glen still hadn’t met.

“For all we know, ‘Phoenix’ could have been a one-off thing,” Jimmy told me recently. “Glen might never have recorded another song of mine.” They finally met at a jingle session. Soon after that date, the phone rang. It was Glen, calling from the studio. “He said, ‘Can you write me a song about a town?’” Jimmy recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know … let me work on it.’ And he said, ‘Well, just something geographical.’

“He and (producer) Al DeLory were obviously looking for a follow-up to ‘Phoenix.’ And I remember writing ‘Wichita Lineman’ that afternoon. That was a song I absolutely wrote for Glen.”

It was the first time he had written a song expressly for another artist. But had he conceived any part of “Wichita” before that call?

Not really,” Jimmy says. “I mean I had a lot of ‘prairie gothic’ images in my head. And I was writing about the common man, the blue-collar hero who gets caught up in the tides of war, as in ‘Galveston,’ or the guy who’s driving back to Oklahoma because he can’t afford a plane ticket (‘Phoenix’). So it was a character that I worked with in my head. And I had seen a lot of panoramas of highways and guys up on telephone wires … I didn’t want to write another song about a town, but something that would be in the ballpark for him.

So even though it was written specifically for Glen, he still wanted it to be a ‘character’ song?

Well, I didn’t want it to be about a rich guy!” he laughs. “I wanted it to be about an ordinary fellow. Billy Joel came pretty close one time when he said ‘Wichita Lineman’ is ‘a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts.’ That got to me; it actually brought tears to my eyes. I had never really told anybody how close to the truth that was.

What I was really trying to say was, you can see someone working in construction or working in a field, a migrant worker or a truck driver, and you may think you know what’s going on inside him, but you don’t. You can’t assume that just because someone’s in a menial job that they don’t have dreams … or extraordinary concepts going around in their head, like ‘I need you more than want you; and I want you for all time.’ You can’t assume that a man isn’t a poet. And that’s really what the song is about.

Like many of his fans, Campbell’s reaction to the song was immediate and tender. “When I heard it I cried, it made me cry because I was homesick.” The lyrics describe a lineman who is also pining for home and imagines he can hear his absent lover “singing in the wire”.

“I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time,” he tells her. “And the Wichita Lineman, is still on the line.”

Webb, while proud of the song, has always insisted it was unfinished, and says he initially considered that famous couplet “the biggest, awfulest, dumbest, most obvious false rhyme in history”. Over the years, Webb made his peace with the line – realising his discomfort over the rhyme had blinded him to the words’ raw power.

Had I known what I was doing, I wouldn’t have written that line. I would have found a way to make it rhyme. It was only years later that I became aware of what a songwriter was even supposed to do. I was really just a kid who was kind of writing from the hip and the heart.

The phrase “singing in the wire” can refer to the sonic vibration commonly induced by wind blowing across small wires and conductors, making these lines whistle or whine like an aeolian harp. It could also, or even simultaneously, refer to the sounds that a lineman might hear when attaching a telephone earpiece to a long stretch of raw telephone or telegraph line, i.e., without typical line equalization and filtering. In the recording, a notable feature of the orchestral arrangement is the effort of the violins and keyboards to mimic these ethereal sounds and Morse code, and the lyric “I can hear you through the whine” further alludes to them.

Before he became a solo star, Campbell was a prominent session musician. On this track, he employed many of the people he used to play alongside on studio dates. Campbell played guitar along with Al Casey and James Burton; Carol Kaye was on bass, Jim Gordon on drums, and Al DeLory played piano. According to Carol Kaye, these session players would add a lot of notes to make more out of the parts that were written, and she created most of the intro on this track. “Wichita Lineman” is one of her favorites of the hundreds of songs she played on. “We knew that this tune was special,” said bassist Carol Kaye, who added the descending six-note intro. “When he started singing, the hair stood up on my arms and I went, ‘Woah, this is deep’.”

On paper, it’s just two verses, each one composed of two rhymed couplets. The record is a three-minute wonder: Intro. First Verse. Staccato telegraph-like musical device. Second verse. No chorus. Guitar solo. Repeat last two lines of second verse (“and I need you more than want you …”). Fade. There is no B section, much less a C section. Producer Al DeLory wrote an evocative orchestral arrangement in which the strings mimicked the sighing of the telephone wires. To get around the problem of the unfinished third verse, Campbell picked up Kaye’s DanElectro six-string bass guitar and improvised the song’s famous solo.

Why did such an unlikely song become a standard? There are many reasons, but here’s one: the loneliness of that solitary prairie figure is not just present in the lyric, it’s built into the musical structure. Although the song is nominally in the key of F, after the tonic chord is stated in the intro it is never heard again in its pure form, with the root in the bass. The melody travels through a series of haunting changes that are considerably more sophisticated than the Top 40 radio norms of that era. The song never does get “home” again to the tonic – not in either verse, nor in the fade-out. This gorgeous musical setting suggests subliminally what the lyric suggests poetically: the lonely journeyman, who remains suspended atop that telephone pole, against that desolate prairie landscape, yearning for home.

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” ranked “Wichita Lineman” at number 195. It has been referred to as “the first existential country song”. British music journalist Stuart Maconie called it “the greatest pop song ever composed”; and the BBC referred to it as “one of those rare songs that seems somehow to exist in a world of its own – not just timeless but ultimately outside of modern music”.

TheBuddha wrote an excellent background article on Glen and his life here.

Hits: 69

“Unchain My Heart” was written by Bobby Sharp and recorded first in 1961 by Ray Charles and later by many others. Sharp, a drug addict at the time, sold the song to Teddy Powell for $50. Powell demanded half the songwriting credit. Sharp later successfully fought for the rights to his song. In 1987, he was also able to renew the copyright for his publishing company, B. Sharp Music. The song was a hit for Charles when released. Accompanied by his backup singers the Raelettes, Charles sang about wanting to be free from a woman “who won’t let (him) go”. His band included longtime saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman.

Hits: 35

The Four Seasons became internationally successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1960, the band known as The Four Lovers evolved into the Four Seasons, with Frankie Valli as the lead singer, Bob Gaudio (formerly of the Royal Teens) on keyboards and tenor vocals, Tommy DeVito on lead guitar and baritone vocals, and Nick Massi on electric bass and bass vocals.

The legal name of the organization is the Four Seasons Partnership, formed by Gaudio and Valli taken after a failed audition in 1960. While singers, producers, and musicians have come and gone, Gaudio and Valli remain the band’s constant (with each owning fifty percent of the act and its assets, including virtually all of its recording catalog) Gaudio no longer plays live, leaving Valli as the only member of the band from its inception who is touring as of 2019.

The Four Seasons were one of only two American bands (the other being the Beach Boys) to enjoy major chart success before, during, and after the British Invasion. The band’s original line-up was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and joined the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. They are one of the best-selling musical groups of all time, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide.

According to Gaudio, this song took about 15 minutes to write and was originally titled “Jackie Baby” (in honor of then-First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy). In a 1968 interview, Gaudio said that the song was inspired by the 1961 Bruce Channel hit “Hey! Baby”.

At the studio, the name was changed to “Terri Baby”, and eventually to “Sherry”, the name of the daughter of Gaudio’s best friend, New York DJ Jack Spector. One of the names that Gaudio pondered for the song was “Peri Baby,” which was the name of the record label for which Bob Crewe worked, named after the label owner’s daughter.

Hits: 38

According to Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 Songs, “Mustang Sally” nearly ended up on the studio floor -- literally. After Pickett finished his final take at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the tape suddenly flew off the reel and broke into pieces. But the session engineer, the legendary Tom Dowd, calmly cleared the room and told everyone to come back in half an hour. Dowd pieced the tape back together and saved what became one of the funkiest soul anthems of the ’60s.”

Spooner Oldham, who is one of the top Muscle Shoals musicians,  played the keyboard on this song. The keyboards are one of the most distinctive parts of the song, but they weren’t on the demo -- Spooner had to create the part so he could play on the record (and get paid).

I was sitting on a stool, and we listened to a demo of Sir Mack Rice who wrote the song, and the first thing I noticed was there was no keyboard on that record. But I’m here, I want the job -- what am I going to do that will work within that song? And I just closed eyes for a second, daydreaming, and said, ‘I wonder what it would sound like if I pretended I was a Harley Davidson motorcycle and was driving through the studio, what would that sound like?’ There’s a little pause in that record where there’s not much going on, and I do rorp-rorp-rorp kind of revving engine thing. And Jerry Wexler liked it, because he later tried to get me to do it again when I was in New York. Of course, I didn’t, it was specific for that song.

Although Wilson Pickett’s version might be the most famous, he did not write the song. “Sir” Mack Rice wrote and recorded the song in 1965, a year before Pickett rode it up the charts. Born Bonnie Rice in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1933, Sir Mack Rice emerged as an R&B/blues vocalist and songwriter in Detroit during the 1950’s, first as a member of the Five Scalders and then as a member of the Falcons from 1957-63, a group whose members included Eddie Floyd, Joe Stubbs, and Wilson Pickett.

In 1963, The Falcons broke up, and in 1965, Rice wrote a song called “Mustang Mama” after visiting his friend, the actress/singer Della Reese, in New York City. Reese told him that she was thinking about buying her drummer Calvin Shields a new Lincoln for his birthday, which Rice, being from Detroit, thought was a great idea. When he mentioned this to Shields, the drummer replied, “I don’t want a Lincoln, I want a Mustang.”

As Rice explained on the 2007 Rhythm & Blues Cruise, he had never heard of a Mustang before, but Shields filled him in. They went for a drive and saw a billboard for a Mustang -- Rice couldn’t believe Shields wanted such a small car instead of a big ol’ Lincoln. When he returned to Detroit, Rice started writing the song as “Mustang Mama,” with the chorus “ride, Sally, ride.” His publisher knew Aretha Franklin well, and brought Rice by her house, and he sang some of the song for her. Aretha suggested he change the title to “Mustang Sally” to better suit the chorus.

Rice got part of the chorus from the children’s game song (recorded by various artists) “Little Sally Walker,” versions of which include the lyrics “Ride Sally ride, wipe your weepin’ eyes”, with variations. His variation goes, “All you wanna do is ride around, Sally/Ride, Sally, ride/One of these early mornings/You’re gonna be wipin’ your weepin’ eyes.”

In May of 1965 Bonny Rice released his original version of this song as Sir Mack Rice, and it hit the R&B charts, peaking at #15.

Wilson Pickett came across the song when Rice was booked to play at The Apollo theater, and the headliner Clyde McPhatter didn’t show. Rice called his old bandmate Pickett, who performed in McPhatter’s place. When Pickett heard Rice perform “Mustang Sally,” he decided to record it himself. His version hit the R&B and Pop charts a year and a half after Rice originally recorded the song.

Before Pickett had a chance to do so, The Young Rascals (Good Lovin, Groovin’) released their version on March 28, 1966 on their album “The Young Rascals”.

In the liner notes for The Rascals Anthology, Felix Cavaliere states that The Young Rascals recorded “Mustang Sally” and “Land of a Thousand Dances” before Pickett and that Atlantic Records “copped those two songs from them and gave them to Pickett” to record.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Wilson Pickett’s recording of the song at #434 on a list of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Hits: 66

Originally written/recorded by John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival who released it in 1969. In the beginning, “Proud Mary” had nothing to do with a riverboat. Instead, John Fogerty envisioned it as the story of a woman who works as a maid for rich people. “She gets off the bus every morning and goes to work and holds their lives together,” he explained. “Then she has to go home.”

It was bassist Stu Cook who first introduced the riverboat aspect of the song. The idea came to him as the group watched the television show “Maverick” and Stu made the statement, “Hey riverboat, blow your bell.” John agreed that the boat seemed to have something to do with the song that had been brewing in his mind for quite some time, waiting to take conscious shape. When he wrote the music, he made the first few chords evoke a riverboat paddlewheel going around. Thus, “Proud Mary” went from being a cleanup lady to a boat.

Fogerty wrote the lyrics based on three song title ideas: “Proud Mary,” “Riverboat,” and “Rolling On A River.” He carried around a notebook with titles that he thought would make good songs, and “Proud Mary” was at the top of the list. 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 part of a Reserve unit, serving at Fort Bragg, Fort Knox, and Fort Lee. His discharge papers came in 1967.

Fogerty recalls in Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival by Hank Bordowitz:

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” (or ‘boinin’,’ using my funky pronunciation I got from Howling’ Wolf).

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.

When we recorded the tracks at RCA Studios in Hollywood in October ’68, I channeled Wilson Pickett and Howlin’ Wolf with my lead vocal. Listening to the playback, I wasn’t happy. The band’s background vocals sounded abrasive—like punk rock, not harmonious. I wanted a gospel feel. When I told the guys I was going to overdub the vocal harmony tracks myself, we had a big fight. Bruce Young, our road manager, took them to dinner. I stayed behind and overdubbed all the background vocal parts. I also overdubbed a guitar solo using a Gibson ES-175—a big jazz guitar that I bought for the recording session. I recorded my solo line twice so it sounded more pronounced.

At the restaurant later, the guys were still angry and threatened to quit. I convinced them to hear the results. Back at the studio, I played them the song with my vocals. Nobody said anything. Then Bruce said, “Wow.” The single came out in January ’69 and topped out at No. 2 on Billboard’s pop chart in March for three weeks. The band eventually broke up in ’72.

When I added rhythm to the chords, the song had the motion of a boat. I had always loved Mark Twain’s writing and the music of Stephen Foster, so I wrote lyrics about a riverboat. The line “rollin’ on the river” was influenced by a movie I once saw about two riverboats racing. I finished most of it in two hours. Then I opened my notebook for a song title. There was “Proud Mary.”

This was a #4 hit in the US for Ike & Tina Turner in 1971, and a highlight of their live shows. “Proud Mary” attracted 35 covers in the year 1969 alone. Over 100 have been made since.

Hits: 35