John Fogerty was once reticent to exert his influence. His first album after breaking with Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1972 — the band that sealed his stamp on Americana — was, ironically, a set of classic covers under the name the Blue Ridge Rangers. Following his first collection of originals three years later, it took him nearly a decade to produce its successor. He returned to the charts with the one-two punch of a Top Ten single, "Old Man Down the Road," and the accompanying number-one album Centerfield, home of the baseball anthem of the same name. Yet with the dismal reception accorded its follow-up, Eye of the Zombie, he again went into seclusion, spending the next 11 years licking his wounds. His most productive period extended from the late '90s through the middle part of the last decade, but ironically, his current disc, The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again, reassumes the covers branding etched early on.
Fogerty eventually embraced his past with CCR after some three decades, settling a bitter, protracted legal feud with his formal label, which found him refusing to perform his old catalog in concert. Some may recall a previous South Florida stop, circa the Eye of the Zombie era, when, to the audience's disappointment and consternation, he shunned his early hits altogether. Fortunately, he's recanted, as his live 2005 career retrospective, The Long Road Home, makes clear. Consequently, fans can feel there's credence in Fogerty's revival.
