With an unmistakable and absolutely distinctive sound, CCR's signature funky rockabilly remains as arresting and vital today as it was 30 years ago. Churning out single after single with unerring power, John Fogarty's obsession with bayou rhythm and Delta sensibility created some of America's best rock and roll.
Released in 1969, Willy and the Poor Boys pays homage to rock's roots with such raw passion that it manages to extend beyond them to forge a free standing working class ethos. This album rocks, pure and simple. Doug Clifford and Stu Cook are rock's premiere rhythm section, their tight and economical washboard groove driving Tom Fogarty's itchy rhythm guitar and brother John's hoarse, impassioned vocals.
Though only 35 minutes long, Willy and the Poor Boys evokes traditional American folk in "Midnight Special", and Leadbelly's ringing 12-string Dixie anthem "Cotton Fields" becomes a resonant, shuffling hymn. Fogarty celebrates Southern rural life in the frenzied "It Came Out of the Sky" and mint julep-smooth "Poorboy Shuffle". "Down on the Corner" and of course the deservedly legendary "Fortunate Son" were the hits, but Willy also features "Don't Look Now," another fiercely political diatribe that is one of CCR's best songs: Fogarty was writing pointed political rock when punk's safety pins were still on its diapers instead of its leather jackets.
The album closes with "Effigy," a tidal, grinding tour de force that trails off into the Spanish moss that drapes the dense swamps of Fogarty's imagination. All of Creedence's albums are essential for any lover of rock and roll, but Willy best explains Fogarty's fertile romance with Reconstructionist South, a romance that gave rock some of its best singles and deepened its rich heritage.
- Jared O'Connor
funky rockabilly