(Credits: Alamy)
Mon 27 October 2025 6:00, UK
You might not think it, but there are a lot of ways to get yourself a number one. You can hit the top of a Billboard chart with a single or an album. You can hit that top spot as a solo artist or as part of a band. You might finally bag a number one with a re-recorded album, five decades after a record first came out.
For John Fogerty, it’s all of those things…well, sort of. Nothing is ever bloody straightforward, is it? Fogerty, the driving force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival, wrote songs that included elements of roots rock, swamp rock, blues rock, country rock, and blue-eyed soul.
The band had nine top ten singles on a cracking run between 1968 and 1972, including songs like ‘Bad Moon Rising’, ‘Up Around the Bend’, ‘Proud Mary’, and ‘Down on the Corner’. Deservedly, though they broke up in 1972, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Not many have such a stacked discography after only four years of releasing music.
All the work paid off, of course. In 1969, the band had their first number one album, Green River, stuffed to the brim with a psychedelia-tinged form of country-rock.
In terms of number one singles, though, the band didn’t quite manage to get there. Though they weren’t blessed with a number one, it wasn’t too big a loss for Fogerty. After all, a particularly prohibitive recording contract with Fantasy Records meant that Fogerty didn’t own the rights to any of his own songs.
Thank God his first number one wasn’t wasted on something he couldn’t legally call his own. Interestingly, the charts continued to play in Fogerty’s favour over half a century after a fan-favourite Creedence Clearwater Revival was released. The song, ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’, finally reached number one on the Billboard Rock Digital Song Sales chart in 2010.
Enough beating around the bush. What was John’s first number one single then? His third solo studio album, Centerfield, released in 1985, hit number one on the charts. It marked his return after nine years, due to those aforementioned pesky legal battles. He came back swinging, nonetheless, with a now certified double-platinum album.
So, what was John Fogerty’s first number one single?
So, while Centerfield was his first number one album in his solo career, the only number one single on a particular Billboard chart was ‘The Old Man Down the Road’. A killer fact, seeing as the song is all about the evils of the industry in the form of a suitcase and a rattlesnake. The tune reached the top of the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
God love him, the talented musician is still at it, too. His set at Glastonbury Festival on the Pyramid Stage in 2025 saw tens of thousands of fans singing along with love, light, and joy, even though his voice isn’t quite up to his former standards. He deserves all the number ones he can get his hands on.
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