Creedence Clearwater Revival were at the peak of their powers in 1969, an extremely prolific year where the foursome netted four Billboard top 10 singles and three top 10 albums.
Having conquered America, even out-selling the Beatles, they headed into 1970 with their sights set on Europe for their first-ever overseas tour — an eight-show run through Denmark, Holland,Germany, France, and most importantly, England.
That tour — and, specifically, its two sold-out London dates — is the focus of a new documentary and live album, both of which have remained unreleased for more than 50 years. The film, Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, is being released concurrently with live album Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall.
Creedence perform with such rarefied level of precision that the sound of their hit records literally come to life on the prestigious Royal Albert Hall stage. Muscular renditions of their hits are doled out throughout the 12-song set, though lesser-known tracks like the gloomy groover "Tombstone Shadow" and an absolutely frantic "Commotion" threaten to steal the show. Although Fantasy Records erroneously released Creedence’s January 1970 performance at The Oakland Coliseum as The Royal Albert Hall Concert in 1980, the actual Royal Albert Hall tapes would sit in storage for an additional 40 years.
Creedence's performances at the Royal Albert Hall occurred mere days after the Beatles announced their break up. While the world was still reeling from that shock, the four young men of Creedence were finally enjoying the fruits of their labor and tasting a little more freedom than they were accustomed to in America. "Europe is shades of gray compared to the black and white of America." bassist Stu Cook opines in the film.
Creedence Clearwater Revival was about as far from an overnight sensation as you could get, with an origin story that dates back to 1959. While still in junior high, John Fogerty, Doug Clifford, and Stu Cook formed the Blue Velvets. John's older brother, Tom, soon joined as lead singer and principal songwriter and they became Tommy Fogerty & The Blue Velvets. After further name changes, including the regrettable record label-mandated moniker the Golliwogs, John became the de facto leader of the group.
In 1968 the group chose a new name, Creedence Clearwater Revival — "Creedence'' was taken from the name of a friend of Tom Fogerty; drummer Doug Clifford's interest in ecology and also a commercial for Olympia beer gave them "Clearwater." According to John, "We wanted to have a little revival among ourselves. That’s what that part [of our name] meant. Let’s get back to the basics."
The documentary, narrated by actor Jeff Bridges (whose infamous The Big Lebowski character, the Dude, was a fan of CCR), includes not just the Royal Albert Hall performance, but archival footage and interviews where the band meditates on its success and on the future. Travelin' Band also features additional performances captured on the 1970 European tour. The documentary and album were restored and mixed at Abbey Road Studios by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, both multiple GRAMMY winners.
GRAMMY.com sat down with CCR drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford and GRAMMY-winning director Bob Smeaton (The Beatles Anthology, and Jimi Hendrix Band Of Gypsies) to discuss the long-lost live recording and new documentary.
In hindsight, CCR were at the zenith of its powers in 1969/1970 – was the RAH show a peak of your time in Creedence?
DOUG CLIFFORD: It was one of them, I'd have to say that. Woodstock was another one. Those are the ones you remember.
Coming over [to Europe] for the first time, and playing the Beatles' house was thrilling. I'm an athlete, so I'm a competitive person. I wanted to knock them off their chair at the Royal Albert, in a good way. I respect the Beatles more than anybody.
Travelin’ Band is comprised entirely of original footage. Can you give me some context about the filming?
CLIFFORD: It was our first time out of the US of A. and we were playing the Royal Albert Hall. I'm not sure whose idea it was, probably [Fantasy Records owner] Saul Zaentz; he went on the trip with us. Of course, he ended up being a movie mogul down the road.
Could you tell me what was so special about the Royal Albert Hall gig in comparison to the other shows on that same tour in Europe?
CLIFFORD: The simple fact is that that's where the Beatles played. We were on their turf. They came to America in '64 and played "The Ed Sullivan Show," we played "The Ed Sullivan Show," twice. It was our first time in many countries actually. To be able to go over and play and do that, from where we started, it was quite a thrill for us.
CCR is as American as apple pie, yet has a worldwide appeal. What do you think it was about Creedence that spoke to a global audience? Did you feel like you were exporting America?
CLIFFORD: Well, we had good songs to start with, a style of rock and roll that sort of goes back to the very beginning of rock and roll and being able to execute all of that. No note is worthy of being in there unless it's bringing something more than the note behind it or in front of it. And so, keeping it simple and singing from the heart.
We weren't gonna do psychedelic music just because it was the thing to do. We were laughed at by our peers and they called us, "The Boy Scouts of rock and roll." That was fine with me. Years later, I ran into some of the guys in Jefferson Airplane and they said, "We used to put you guys down and call you a Top 40 band. We tried and tried and tried to make a big single, but we could never do it. You guys were putting them out double sided. Boom, boom, boom." So there was mostly envy when it came to those guys.
It seems important that Creedence paid homage to your influences live. You were doing Ray Charles, Little Richard and Leadbelly songs. Did that importance change at all when you were playing to European audiences who may not have had the same cultural background or context with early rock and roll or the blues?
CLIFFORD: No, it didn't. In fact, it was the British who resurrected the blues in America. They were students of the blues, to an extent that it was much more realistic than than most of the American bands. I found that to be very interesting. They put that all together, executed it and made it so real. And so good.
That happened and also to a lot of jazz musicians who found their way to Europe and they were greatly appreciated. The British had more of a student-type approach to learning that music and then letting it grow.
Your Royal Albert Hall performance was a 12 song set with no encore – a hard fast rule set by John. How did it feel to never do encores when the audience was screaming for more? Did you also believe in the "leave them wanting more" school of thought?
CLIFFORD: It was a stupid thing to do. That was anywhere we played, not just this show. When you get a 15 minute standing ovation in England and to not go back out, I was sitting backstage in disbelief. I never understood why. Maybe somewhere we played somebody played an encore that was not earned, but we always played our very best and it took the heart out of the band.
Do you have any favorite stories or memories from the tour or the Royal Albert Hall Show that might have not been included in the documentary?
CLIFFORD: I just really enjoyed being in a place where civilization had been going on for hundreds of years. Made America look like a little kid. Stu was the only one of us who had been out of the country before.
To go over there and see the Berlin Wall was amazing. We went for a tour inside East Germany in a van. It was all set up and with all these lawyers, driving around and I'm goin', "Holy s— what? Why are we here?" We went inside the wall, we were driving around, and every person that was there was in a uniform of some type. No one was wearing civilian clothes. It was all very, very strange.
What was your involvement with this film and the live album, and why has it taken 52 years to be released?
CLIFFORD: Well, my involvement was that I played drums. That part was easy and most enjoyable [laughs]. It was the only unreleased music that we had left. Originally, later in the mid-70s, John made a deal with Fantasy Records to get out of his contract. And one of the things he wanted in the contract is you can only release one piece of unreleased music and no more.
BOB SMEATON: I worked a lot for Apple Records, which is the Beatles' company. There's the guy that worked at Apple, Jonathan Klein, who spoke to me and said, "There's this project which might happen, which I think would be right up your street" because now, most of the big bands have already been done. So he said CCR and I thought, "Holy s—!"
I like CCR but they were never my favorite band, like our British bands like Zeppelin, the Who, the Stones, Free, the Beatles and that sort of stuff. So I started to read up on them and got the albums and played them. And I thought, You know, how did I really miss out on this band? I knew their hits like "Bad Moon Rising," and obviously I know "Proud Mary." But then we got more into the story. And then suddenly, they were my favorite band because Fogerty is a great singer, and they're a great band.
Despite being so massive and prolific, CCR doesn't seem to be held with the same reverence as Dylan, the Stones, or the Beatles. Do you feel like Creedence is due for a critical reassessment with these new releases?
CLIFFORD: I don't know. That's just how it played out. We didn't have a manager; John was our business manager and he knew nothing about that. Maybe we could have stayed together longer if we had somebody who was a real professional.
This wonderful legacy of music that we have, that's all that matters: the work. And we worked hard; there was no no goofing around. We couldn't achieve all the things that we were able to do musically had we not been straight and sober. That's what's important and I can't change the way the other things were. No one can. So there you have it.
There are no talking heads in this film, which is unusual for a music documentary today. Instead, it straddles the line between concert film and documentary. Can you describe your thinking around formatting?
SMEATON: When we first started on the project, the plan was to interview Doug, Stu and John, and that was it. Right from the get go, [I thought we should] end with when the band walked off stage at the Royal Albert Hall rather than get into all the later drama within the group. Those wheels were in motion, then the pandemic happened and I couldn't fly anywhere.
It makes for a much more interesting film, rather than talking heads and guys in their seventies sitting for the camera. Let's go back to the period — any interview that the guys have done — we went out there, [found] radio interviews, all that stuff.
And then we started to get a sense of what the biggest revelations were: the players and the Royal Albert Hall after they played. They actually brought a camera guy on [the European] tour. One guy was shooting 16mm film; that was in addition to those video cameras that actually shot the show. [There was] tons of footage from the gigs in Europe, shot on film, not video tape like the Royal Albert Hall gig.
This is unseen material. I don't know why they didn't use it earlier. So then, we started to get the story in place with only the guys in the band back in the day. There were a few gaps in the story. So I started to write the voiceover just to give the viewer a backstory. The backstory takes 40 minutes before we see the actual concert. We wanted to show why Creedence was such an important band in the first place.
Whose brilliant idea was it to cast "The Dude" himself, Jeff Bridges, as narrator?
SMEATON: That was the producer Sig Sigworth’s idea. Jeff was great. He worked at it. He would do takes until he got it right. He was perfect for the job.
The documentary and live album looks and sounds fantastic. The sound is crystal clear. What processes did you go through to restore the original footage and multitrack audio?
SMEATON: At the end of the day, it's still the 1970s. It's not Get Back, it's not shot on 16 mm film. It was shot on video. We didn't have that sort of thing. But what we also had was Giles Martin.
So we said it’s been recorded on 8-track audio. Giles got the tapes, did his magic. He didn't have to fix anything. He says: "What you hear is what those guys played.” I've worked on live albums and I've recorded live recordings at the Royal Albert Hall where we've had to go in and correct things. The rhythm section in the pocket all the way to Thailand. It’s timeless music and most of those songs are three minutes long. Everything you want is contained within those songs.
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