Andy Gray

It’s hard to argue that someone who can be found in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and even (sort of) the Baseball Hall of Fame is underrated, but I think John Fogerty qualifies.

Fogerty, who performs Monday at the Canfield Fair, certainly has his fans — I’m one of them — but Fogerty and the band he led, Creedence Clearwater Revival, seem to get left out when folks are arguing who’s better among the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who or The Kinks or even when they’re debating the merits of the Grateful Dead vs. The Doors among the California bands of the late ’60s.

CCR didn’t have the longevity of many of those acts, but its five years together include an 18-month run that just about anyone short of John, Paul, George and Ringo would envy.

Think about some of today’s top artists. Pearl Jam has released two albums in the last decade. Beyonce’s new album is her first in six years. As prolific as Dave Grohl is, Foo Fighters never has released two studio albums in the same year.

From January 1969 to July 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival released four studio albums — “Bayou Country,” “Green River,” “Willy & the Poor Boys” and “Cosmo’s Factory.” Those four albums produced 14 singles. None of them topped the Billboard singles charts, but seven of them made the top five and only a couple failed to crack the top 40.

With the exception of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” Fogerty wrote every one of those hits, one of which also became the signature song of another Rock Hall inductee (Ike & Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary”).

I don’t have any real first-hand memory of this period. I was alive, but I was young enough that The Monkees were about the only “rock” band on my radar. I can’t fathom how ubiquitous CCR must have been on the radio at that time.

Prince, at the height of “Purple Rain” mania, only had seven top 40 hits in 1984-85. Bruce Springsteen only gets to eight top 40 hits from July 1984 to 1986 at peak “Born in the USA” fandom. Madonna’s top 40 chart success is astounding and she had a much longer run, but even Madonna never had as many hits as CCR in such a concentrated window of time.

And CCR wasn’t just a top 40 act. The band might be considered the soundtrack of the Vietnam War. It seems every movie about that war includes “Fortunate Son,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and / or “Run Through the Jungle.” They looked a bit more square than other California bands of the late ’60s, but those hits made them one of the “loudest” voices of the anti-war movement.

At the same time, CCR also was a jam band or at least a blues-influenced rock band that could explore and improvise within the framework of those “pop” songs. A few of those three-minute singles were two or three times longer on the LP.

Fogerty spent most of his career estranged from his bandmates and the label that released CCR’s music. For about 20 years, he refused to play those songs. He was far less prolific, but he wrote some pretty great songs during that stretch — “Almost Saturday Night,” “Rockin’ All Over the World,” “Old Man Down the Road” and “Centerfield,” the song that got Fogerty honored in Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I saw Fogerty a couple of times during that period, and they were fun shows, but nothing equaled hearing Fogerty sing those CCR classics. I’ve had the pleasure several times, most recently in 2018 when Fogerty and ZZ Top played the Covelli Centre on a co-headlining tour.

I always have a hard time answering the question, “What’s the best concert you’ve seen?” But I can’t make a top 5 list that doesn’t include the 2004 Vote for Change concert at Cleveland’s Gund Arena, where the lineup included R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and Fogerty (with Bruce and his band serving as Fogerty’s backup).

I can’t think of a better way to spend Labor Day than hearing Fogerty one more time.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.