\n\tThe legendary Creedence Clearwater Revival founder, the recipient of the Songwriter Hall of Fame\u2019s highest honor the Johnny Mercer Award, gave a speech for the ages that literally spanned his entire life and lasted more than 35 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFellow guitar great Steve Miller, who was inducted into the SHOF in 2022, called Fogerty \u201cone of America\u2019s most gifted and enduring songwriters [who has] forged something uniquely American.\u201d Miller also praised Fogerty for his fight for artists\u2019 rights, including his long battle to claim ownership of his own work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFogerty then took the stage and ran through his musical life, starting with hearing Stephen Foster\u2019s \u201cOh! Susanna\u201d and \u201cCamptown Races\u201d when he was three, forging a lifelong love for music. That led to writing his first song, \u201cWash Day Blues,\u201d on his way to school when he was eight, based on a laundry product advertisement.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI love music! It\u2019s supposed to be about joy; it\u2019s supposed to be about having fun. The great ones seem to flow effortlessly,\u201d he exclaimed, adding that the first song that ever flowed for him was \u201cProud Mary,\u201d and then, remarkably, pulled out a brown book from 1967 that included the first phrases of his most beloved, well-known classic. He dissected writing the rock standard, saying he started to \u201cactually shake and tremble,\u201d as the words poured out of him. \u201cIt was like being struck by lightning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFogerty ran through his decades-long career\u2014 the good and bad\u2014including releasing three hit-filled albums in one year and finding tremendous success, as well as CCR breaking up, and Fantasy Records\u2019 Saul Zaentz then holding him to a contract that would have taken him more than 20 years to fulfill and the label suing him \u201cfor sounding like myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFinally, in 2023, Fogerty, with the help of his wife\/manager Julie Fogerty and noted manager Irving Azoff, Fogerty gained worldwide control of his CCR publishing rights. As Fogerty wrapped up his speech, expressing delight in finally getting his songs, he gleefully said, \u201cI had a plan and it was I outlived the sons of b-tches!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFogerty, 81, joined by his sons Shane and Tyler, then turned in an incredibly robust, full-throttle medley of \u201cOh! Susanna,\u201d \u201cProud Mary,\u201d \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain\u201d and \u201cThe Old Man Down the Road.\u201d\u00a0\u2013 M.N.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legendary Creedence Clearwater Revival founder, the recipient of the Songwriter Hall of Fame\u2019s highest honor the Johnny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,1703,99,134,136,141225],"class_list":["post-732150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awards","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}