The Band vs. Credence Clearwater Revival

Way more indie people (dunno specifically about bands) like the Band, I think. Tho CCR eat them alive.

The Band involvement w/ Dylan (Basment Tapes FOREVER!!!) gives them the "cred" - and the some of the party tunes that CCR penned deminishes theirs. At the end of the day, CCR where one of America's absolutely best bands and Fogerty one of rock's best writers.

Creedance. Easy.

this is not even remotely the remotest of contests

(ccr obvs)

i can't even choose i love both these musical acts so much.

ccr was so remarkably consistent, hardly any missteps and just classic tune after classic tune. a great band in every respect.

the band maybe reached more majestic heights at times, but obv. did a metric ton of shit in their later career...bonus points obv awarded for basement tapes and the shit hot live playing on their live album and the 66 dylan bootleg series.

fogerty seems like way less of a d-bag than robbie robertson, and gave us a couple of snappy 80s hits about baseball and rock n' roll and old men and roads vs. robbie's ponderous fake lanois u2 american indian jive ass shit.

so yeah i can't call it.

richard manuel might be the tiebreaker for me. fuck i don't know...also the band's stuff w/ronnie hawkins is pretty ace if you DL some of those 45s they are on.

but the golliwogs song on the nuggets box is good too!

PW OTM

I like me some "Long Black Veil" and "The Weight," but honestly:

side one, Creedence Chronicles Vol. 1:
Susie Q
I Put A Spell On You
Proud Mary
Bad Moon Rising
Lodi
Green River
Commotion
Down On The Corner
Fortunate Son
Travelin' Band

hard to think of a band whose greatest hits could fuck with that, except maybe the Stones.

robbie's ponderous fake lanois u2 american indian jive ass shit

hahaha i forgot about that record!

also: CCR, no contest.

i can't forget the time i went somewhere down that crazy river

wasn't your boat named Sweet Fire of Love?

matt is largely OTM upthread, except that, uh, i like that ponderous fake lanois u2 american indian jive ass shit

I love the Band, but CCR did not subject us to the interview segments in "The Last Waltz," so CCR wins.

As noted upthread, CCR rules all in the greatest hits department. It's remarkable how few years it took them to amass that body of work.

CCR = nuthin' but smashes.

CCR

I dunno, I like them both. The Band were...deeper, I think. CCR's songs I like, Fogerty's rather harsh singing not so much. I actually go with the Band, with the note that their first 2 records are great, the others less so, whereas CCR's records were really consistent up to Pendulum. but the Band tried to do something--sometimes they got it, sometimes they didn't--that was way beyond the reach of John Fogerty. looks like I'm in the minority here--and also, I'll add that I still listen to the Band, partic. Big Pink, but haven't to CCR in ages.

there's a lot of good songs buried in the band's later catalog as well, just probably no album that totally works...

i think i'd rather listen to levon helm recite dialogue in one of his movie roles than listen to the band. anyway ccr would defeat most opponents.

the band was funky enough to be sampled by premo = +1 for the band

I dunno, I like them both. The Band were...deeper, I think. CCR's songs I like, Fogerty's rather harsh singing not so much. I actually go with the Band, with the note that their first 2 records are great, the others less so, whereas CCR's records were really consistent up to Pendulum. but the Band tried to do something--sometimes they got it, sometimes they didn't--that was way beyond the reach of John Fogerty. looks like I'm in the minority here--and also, I'll add that I still listen to the Band, partic. Big Pink, but haven't to CCR in ages.

-- whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, October 10, 2007 6:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

weepier != deeper

the band was funky enough to be sampled by premo = +1 for the band

CCR's been sampled too ya know

there's that Down on the Corner sample on Licensed to Ill but I'm positive there's something else I'm blanking on right now... argghhhh where is internet sample database...

they don't have any riff as funky as the intro to cripple creek though

that IS funky

lo lo hoo

lo dee lo loo hoo hoo

i think i'd rather listen to levon helm recite dialogue in one of his movie roles than listen to the band.

http://www.dailywav.com/0907/stillhaveshovel.wav

Are they even really comparable? It seems to me their goals were too different, and they were really working in different sonic arenas. CCR would never have done the Allen-Toussaint-arranged horns thing, and the Band would've never done a guitar-rave-up like "Ramble Tamble." CCR couldn't do harmonies like the Band, and the Band didn't have a vocalist with Fogerty's rage.

did camden joy start the indie rock ccr reclamation project? i seem to remember that he wrote one of those ccr is the best music of your/my life things in some fanzine years ago. too bad their aren't many (any?) indie rock bands that try and sound like them. but then they wouldn't be indie rock bands if they did i guess. they would be jam bands or nu-country bands.

i was never a big Band fan. but give me a few years. they will probably end up being one of my fave groups. i am quickly becoming an old crusty boring fart.

whereas, with ccr, i honestly can't remember a day in my life that i did not love them and their songs. since toddlerhood.

"Are they even really comparable?"

yeah, they really are.

i mean they were both 60's-era roots rockers with big hippie fanbases. though ccr had tons more hits and sold more records. they weren't complete opposites or something. they both loved the blues and r&b and country and mixed that in with 60's rock.

you could throw the dead in there too if you wanted to. i'd still pick ccr.

CCR were just so consistently, dependably good, whereas The Band were forgettable three times as often as they were transcendent - I feel like there's some kind of masterful "craftsman" vs. gifted but inconsistent "artist" analogy to be made, but that's probably unfair to CCR's artistry. It just seems like CCR came up with this dependable framework in which greatness often transpired, whereas The Band seems like they were always groping for greatness and not always achieving it.

i seriously think that difference is just the band being more depressed dudes

Hurting's last sentence is OTM.

i seriously think that difference is just the band being more depressed dudes

Fogerty seems like a pretty angsty/unhappy guy to me - not a single love song in his whole catalog, for ex.

CCR's work is much more immediate! But, like the Beatles, I don't play them very often (I can't remmeber the last time I played CCR, actually, and don't own any studio albums besides Chronicnles). I find The Band's mist-over-the-mountains enigmas more tantalizing as I get older and like Scott I'll probably like'em a lot in about 10 years.

listening to CCR's debut right now. so great. those guitars! and the choice covers of course. wilson pickett, suzie q, i put a spell on you. sometimes when i listen to creedence i think of the velvet underground. the guitars transport me in the same way. lou and sterl were big on choogle jamz of course.

Fogerty seems like a pretty angsty/unhappy guy to me - not a single love song in his whole catalog, for ex.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, October 10, 2007 6:51 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah but more like aggro than the like psychotic depression of "whispering pines" or something

i LOVE the band and their weepy stuff, but i dont think its obv that theyre more ambitious than CCR

"gloomy" is so awesome. it's john's "fever". as psych swamp boogie.

ha, i just picked Gloomy on the best song thread. the guitars are so awesome on that one!

The songs that are probably my favorite Band songs are Dylan co-writes. I don't always like Robertson as a lyricist. The lyrics of The Weight always annoyed the shit out of me even though I still manage to like the song somehow.

i love most ccr covers too. especially country ones. i can't think of any band covers that i love. except for joan baez's the night they drove old dixie down. which i like more than the original.

wait you know what would be awesome would be CCR doing "The Weight"

Yeah, I can hear that, actually, done over the standard CCR backbeat instead of halftime.

wait, i was unclear a little bit. i love when OTHER people cover ccr. but i do love ccr's choice of covers as well. there. it's all good really.

Pavement have a nice chooglin' cover of "Lodi."

also Sinister Purpose - Malkmus is a big Fogerty fan.

but I dunno covering CCR seems like covering Funkadelic to me - really ill advised in most cases

CCR covering funkadelic would be so rad

roflz

altho I can totally picture/hear Fogerty's voice doing "I'll Bet You"

strawberry wine, shap i'm in, w.s. walcott, daniel & the sacred harp, and obv STAGE FRIGHT itself... total classic through and through

As much as I love CCR, they never fucked with the arrangements: the guitars always went HERE, the drums always did what drums always do (brilliantly, though), and ditto the bass. Whereas the Band always stood the arrangements on their head; Danko fucked with the melody line, Garth fucked with sonics (in church, no less: I yield to no one in my love for Creedence, but they don't have anything as unabashedly majestic as "Chest Fever" in their catalog), Robbie teased the guitar, Richard sang sweeter than Fogerty could hope to (ok, "Wrote a Song For Everyone" excluded).

As much as I love the Band, they never rocked as hard and as incisively as CCR. Their arrangements were too diffuse to lend themselves to full-bore rocking out. CCR's rhythm section swung with much more focused purpose than the Band's, Fogerty attacked the guitar, and sang with more about-to-crack anger than anyone in the Band could hope to.

"Sleeping" is great too.

do you have the reissue on CD, i actually like the alternate versions of daniel and strawberry wine better than the album versions. i kinda wish todd rungren wasn't involved in that album, the mix is kind of antiseptic compared to the first two.

no i dont! id love to hear those... but yeah i do agree abt todd rundgren; one of my favorite things about the band is how messy and dirty they sound and i think they lose some of that on stage fright

Sara Sara Sara really gets it, above. I do love me some CCR--the early stuff especially, and Willy and the Poorboys is a brilliant record, their best, I think. "Effigy" is always good to hear. Great stuff, great singles. But what I think is that the Band went far, far deeper musically...not weepier. What they sang about anticipated the dreaded Americana genre, sure, but how they played is actually closer to, say, Beefheart than to what we now call roots-rock. They were really sprung, really different in every way, and I perceive something truly mystical--a word I hate--in songs like "We Can Talk About It." Not in the song itself, altho it's a good one and appears to be about their relationship to the American South or something equally banal, but in the interplay of the voices, the pure style of how the musicians interacted. Whereas CCR was always stiff--not to say they didn't make it work, but it was a bit pro forma at times. In that sense, they anticipated the dry formalism of roots-rock; it was enough for Fogerty that they sang about the American South and they played straight rock and roll, but the Band were obviously a bit more conflicted about it. This led to the bullshit of their later career, and once Robbie Robertson took the group over, they were finished. (My favorite Band member has always been Richard Manuel.) In short, they got pretentious. But Fogerty's solo shit--I mean if there's a more deliberately banal song than "Centerfield," more deliberately stupid "Americana," not to mention plain annoying, then I don't know what it is. What was that other Fogerty song from that record, "Eye of the Tiger" or something? Or was that Loverboy or Quarterflash? Can't remember any more and don't care. You can only take that Americana shit so far.

"Old Man Down the Road" was the other single off that

max email me if you want

(My favorite Band member has always been Richard Manuel.)

honestly sometimes i think manuel could have been a better songwriter than robbie if he wasn't such a drug wreck.

honestly sometimes i think manuel could have been a better songwriter than robbie if he wasn't such a drug wreck.

Levon, in his book, partially blames Robertson. Manual did enjoy booze and drugs. But he supposedly withdrew from the Band's creative process after Robertson fucked him over (as well as the rest of the band) when it came to writing credits for the second LP.

honestly sometimes i think manuel could have been a better songwriter than robbie if he wasn't such a drug wreck.

Or if Albert Grossman had taken him aside instead of Robbie and given him the "You're the REAL talent in this group!" treatment.

I always thought Robertson was a prick. But even if a 1/4 of what Levon wrote is true, then the guy is a bigger douche than I ever imagined.

oh man, yeah, manuel's songs are amazing. I love the Band, but I love "Whispering Pines" about ten times as much as any of their other songs. It really is a tragedy that he never made the possibly-great solo album he probably had lurking somewhere. Has anyone heard any of those slighty-sketchy seeming latter day live records of his? Always been intrigued, but I think they have high import prices.

i always wonder about the complaints surrounding robertson and his treatment of the rest of his Bandmates -- if he was such a prick how come they stayed in the group for so long after the Brown Album? (Not denying Robertson is a prick -- he totally is! -- but I guess if it was such a huge problem for everybody, how come they ended up working with him for another six years or so?)

anyway, back to the question -- i can't decide. to me, CCR is kind of like a roots rock ramones. totally reliable, brilliant at what they do. the band is uhhh more like a roots rock ... um somebody help me here.

i tried to listen to a band show on wolfgang's vault just now, and, um, yeah, i couldn't do it. maybe when i'm older. i mean, i love the dead and little feat and the allman brothers and dylan and the byrds and country music and bayou music and dr john and professor longhair and.... i love everybody. my epiphany will have to wait.

great fillmore ccr show from 69 on there though:

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/ConcertDetail.aspx?id=723|1451

personally, i would try to find an earlier live document from the band. I believe WV only has live shows from the mid 70s.

The Band ... but maybe it's because I was into CCR when I was young. Hum - my kids would probably like it too - I'll have to play it more often

The Band's debut album is better than any album by CCR. I prefer CCR based on overall output though.

CCR ever time. Fuck the Band right up the Big Pink.

has no one ever listened to the Sir Douglas Quintet? ever?

i only mention this because they, in my opinion, come damn close to out-CCRing CCR and out-Banding the Band, AND they're actually from the south(west) instead of just pretending to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qNWhy9yk8

CCR obv more consistent, stronger, tighter, etc, but loose is the Band's virtue - much better aesthetic, broader palette, more interesting folks.

I am in the sarasarasara and eddhurt party here

also Sinister Purpose - Malkmus is a big Fogerty fan.

this is the most interesting thing Shakey has ever posted on ILx, I believe

from recently-posted old Xgau essay on the Dead (http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/news/grateful-69.php)...

That is why their music is such a melting pot. If rock is nothing but gut appeal contained within what Mickey Hart calls the "box" of the four-four beat, then the Dead no longer care primarily about making good rock. But if rock is music that makes you dance, then they may make the best rock of all.

The Band didn't play much dance music, but like the Dead they were after more than just rock, as I think are most of my favorite musos. I mean the Stones are obv great, but they've always bored me a little. Same is true of CCR even if I like them better cuz they're 'merkins.

the Dead no longer care primarily about making good rock

I'd say that pretty much sums up their aesthetic.

sure, I love the Sir Douglas Quintet. Mendocinohas been, at times in my life when I felt most vulnerable, my favorite record ever. But I mean, Levon Helm was from Helena, Arkansas. Which is pretty much as...down-home as you can get. I totally understand the backlash against the Band or the idea that they were fakes or stiff or weepy--there's a lot of truth to that. And there are people who just don't want to hear Big Pink or whose pop aesthetic rebels against the whole thing, and good for them, I share some of that aesthetic myself. But it's in my opinion just reductive to say that everything has to be concise and tight like CCR or whatever your pop aesthetic dictates. Those first 2 Band records are great and they made me feel some kind of nostalgia or ruefulness or something about my experiences as a Southerner--I'm from Tennessee and they taught me something I wouldn't have learned elsewhere. And they were great musicians, all of them. And they appeared at a time when pop saw itself as exhausted and they took that feeling and did something with it--of course it couldn't last for long before it curdled.

Thank you 'people explosion' for the fine Sir Douglas Quintet footage - that made my day - I wanna meet some chicks that can groove like those in the footage. And damn me - we'll get down like that to the Band, CCR and Sahm godammit!

PS - gotta go with CCR

no denying ccr's boatload of undeniable hits, but manuel and danko tip the scales in favor of the band (and i love helms and hudson too)

er, stupid repetition there.....how about kickass hits?

"And they appeared at a time when pop saw itself as exhausted"

By "pop" do you mean "sleepy drug-addled rock stars who needed a vacation"? Cuz pop music was doing fine when The Band was around. Just ask The Carpenters! Or The Delfonics! Or anyone who wasn't The Band or David Crosby!

"Fuck The Band, i'm going to a garden party!"

http://www.ricknelson.com/images/120488B1.jpg

i don't understand that part either, scott, but this is otm

I totally understand the backlash against the Band or the idea that they were fakes or stiff or weepy--there's a lot of truth to that. And there are people who just don't want to hear Big Pink or whose pop aesthetic rebels against the whole thing, and good for them, I share some of that aesthetic myself. But it's in my opinion just reductive to say that everything has to be concise and tight like CCR or whatever your pop aesthetic dictates. Those first 2 Band records are great and they made me feel some kind of nostalgia or ruefulness or something about my experiences as a Southerner--I'm from Tennessee and they taught me something I wouldn't have learned elsewhere. And they were great musicians, all of them.

This weepy/depressive shit is aboslutely baffling to me. Is The Band narcissistic and self-pitying? Of course. But is there anyone who seriously believes CCR is the one that had more good times? I can't think of a song in which they sound convincingly like they're having fun? (and maybe that's why Centerfield was such a hit?) The Band sounds like it's having fun even when it's singing about achy breaky hearts, and is more lively than leaden even when it's whining.

I think the difference that's being referred to is one of subject-matter - The Band delved into all that messy singer-songwriter stuff, while CCR maintained a (working-)manly distance analogous to Stones' britishes ironic one.

CCR is easy for regular guys like GWB to claim; The Band is not.

I can't think of a song in which they sound convincingly like they're having fun?

Travelin Band
Ooby Dooby
The Night Time is The Right Time
Around The Bend

But he's moaning and whinging on "Travelin' Band"

Tho admittedly he sounds like he's enjoying it

the cheeriest CCR song I can think of is "Lookin' Out My Back Door".

"Willy and the Poorboys" is fairly cheery

i only mention this because they, in my opinion, come damn close to out-CCRing CCR and out-Banding the Band, AND they're actually from the south(west) instead of just pretending to be.

Not only that, but Sahm actually cut an album w/Cook & Clifford!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/719H7HE57DL._AA240_.jpg

I think you mean "Down on the Corner"

Groovers Paradise is super cool but it doesn't hold a candle to CCR.

Fogerty seems like a pretty angsty/unhappy guy to me - not a single love song in his whole catalog, for ex.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with "Joy Of My Life," Shakey.

This is an odd comparison, but CCR's career trajectory reminds me of the Ramones. Like the Ramones, they discovered their voice very early and then never deviated much from it. This has a lot to do with the personalities involved. In CCR. there was never any doubt who was the leader. In the Band there were more competing personalities since as long as Helm was around Robertson was never going to be in complete control. As to why everyone in the Band stayed around after being fucked over by Robertson, money makes you do some strange things. I get the impression that by the end of the Band's career they really despised each other.

CCR for me. They were consistantly great for pretty much their entire existance, whereas with The Band, they became an acquired taste after the 2nd album. And it's an acquired taste that i've yet to (and probably will never) acquire myself.

pop being exhausted. that would be 1968, Scott, a little before the era of the, er, Carpenters, or the Delfonics. when the first Band record came out. in interviews around then, Robertson talked about how everyone like the Doors (already over by then) were into bein' agin their parents and that whole rebellion thing, whereas the Band were into tradition and all that shit. roots. the post-Sgt. Pepper backlash. the beginnings of the rock 'n' roll revival. self-consciousness in the face of the end of that whole Beatles-fueled pop explosion. the Band (and CCR) were quite self-consciously against that whole ethos of kill yr. mama that the Stooges and others would take to such extremes. this led to pub-rock, "craftsmanship," country-rock and all that stuff that began happening in '68. I suppose I should've said white pop--black music was doing fine, mostly, altho, again, the soul era was already over by then, certainly by the time Dr. King got shot in Memphis in April '68. and I guess the Intruders were happening then, neo-classical soul was still cooking, Chicago soul and the beginnings of the Philly scene. and I mean I love the Carpenters as far as that goes, but if Karen Carpenter singing "Rainy Days and Mondays" isn't a symptom of exhaustion...

I gotta vote for CCR. I want to like the Band more, and I do hear some hints of that "old weird America" (as I think Greil Marcus would put it) atmosphere in their records - they channel some near-spooky Harry Smith-type shit at times - but it doesn't grab me the way CCR's best tunes do. Even when the Band are good, I tend to suspect that they are imitating something that's better - probably some old folk 78, if I could only track it down. Whereas CCR to me sounds like the actual goods. I heard a bar band play "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" last week, not expecting it, and from that first verse, and the little shouted "I know" hook, I was hooked once again.

This is an odd comparison, but CCR's career trajectory reminds me of the Ramones. Like the Ramones, they discovered their voice very early and then never deviated much from it.

Yes, but considering that CCR released the bulk of their output over the course of about 3 years, whereas the Ramones lasted a couple of decades - there was a lot more not deviating going on in the Ramones' case.

"Long As I Can See the Light"->"I Heard It Through The Grapevine" = average white band, afaic. I've never much liked Otis Redding either, tho.

I'll admit that there are some CCR songs that don't do much for me - "Grapevine" being among them. It's not one of their better covers, I think - not a song they really put their stamp on, like "Midnight Special", for instance.

yeah, I'll probably never be able to hear anything but the Arlo Guthrie version of that

"pop being exhausted. that would be 1968, Scott"

ah, okay, i thought you meant, like, in their lifetime as a band. or basically, late 60's/early 70's.