Creedence Clearwater Revival Album: “Creedence Clearwater Revival [Box]”

CCR is high on the list of bands that made me glad I saved all my old records. As was the case with most bands from the pre-CD era, the first CD reissues of their albums had sound quality that seemed thin enough to tear, so you were better off with the pops and skips on the original vinyl. That finally changed a few years ago with the remastered versions of all their albums, and this collection features all of those (including liner notes and pictures) plus a bit more.

With nearly every note the four guys from El Cerrito are known to have recorded under their various band names from 1961-1972, this is about as close to a complete collection as we're ever likely to get. (The infamous "lost" 1962 single of "Yes You Did" and "Now You're Not Mine" is still lost, but everything else appears to be here.) So unless you bought all the remastered CDs individually, this collection is well worth the price tag to any serious fan. Creedence was all but unique among singles-oriented bands in that most of their album cuts have aged just as well as their hits, and it shows here. If anything, relatively obscure songs like "Wrote a Song for Everyone" and "Ramble Tamble" sound fresher than "Proud Mary" and some of the other classics which oldies and classic rock stations have done their best to play into the ground. Even the much-maligned "Mardi Gras" album proves not to be the disaster it was once made out to be (although it is still their weakest link). Stu Cook's "Door to Door" actually rocks pretty convincingly, and most of the other selections have their moments as well.

One word of advice: If you're thinking about buying this collection only for the pre-CCR songs, I wouldn't recommend it. Some of the early sides are quite good ("You Better Be Careful" and "Fight Fire" would have sounded at home on their first album) and even the weaker efforts are an interesting look at the roots of one of rock's all time greatest bands; but bottom line, there is a reason why they didn't become famous until 1968. But if there are any other holes in your collection, this is the perfect addition to it.

A longtime CCR and John Fogerty fan, I asked my friends to give me this box set for Christmas. Its comprehensiveness is impressive, but I'm sorry to say the sound quality falls far short of what I would consider the archival recording this magnificent American band deserves. The problem is what I take to be azimuth misalignment in playing back the original tapes, or whatever the analog source they used to master these CDs. The result is the distorted "swooshing" cymbals you hear when such a problem exists, and it mars many of the tracks here, including virtually every cut on Green River. I DO NOT remember the original LPs having this problem, or even the first generation of CCR CDs of the original albums. I therefore have to say that I am very disappointed with this box set and hope that Fantasy will go back to the original tapes and try this remastering thing again, until they get it right. Otherwise [it] is a high price to pay for the nice CCR illustrated booklet included, containing essays which have already appeared in previous reissues.

UPDATE: It's now 2010, and recent comments attesting to first-class sound suggest that Fantasy, these days under the more enlightened management of Concord Music Group, may have remastered these discs and fixed the problems I alluded to back in 2002. If so, please disregard my review. If you order the box and do still hear "swooshing" cymbals, however, you'll know what I was talking about...

This would be a good purchase for people who either A: have Chronicle and want to hear more, B: have their songs on tape, C: younger fans who enjoy classic rock music, D: People who might have one of their CDs, but haven't gotten around to picking up the remastered copy.

I still recommend "Chronicle" vol. 1 and 2 but nothing truly beats this collection.

CCR have had their songs repackaged time and time again, and this is the first time their work has been properly put together.

First off, you get a full length CD of the pre-CCR Golliwogs and Blue Velvets, which showcases the Fogerty brothers trying to find their own style and trying others. Starting with "Little Tina" and "Walk on the Water" (which they'd rerecord as CCR) you start hearing the style they'd run with. On the second CD, you hear them start off with the rare 45 "Call it Pretending" into more familiar terrotory. The second through the fifth CDs cover all their studio recordings and some promos here and there. Part of the fifth and all of the sixth CD showcase CCR in a live setting (some of which are repeated), and even though the audio is not as good as it should be, it's still pretty energetic and sounds almost as good as the studio albums. The closest we can get is John Fogerty's "Premonition" DVD which covers a healthy amount of CCR-era material.

Finally, this would have been a good time to put out a video collection exclusive to the box set (a lot of which people have rarely if ever seen). On American Bandstand, they did "Commotion" and "Green River", on Ed Sullivan they did "Fortunate Son" and "Down on the Corner", on Johnny Cash they did "Bad Moon Rising" and "Proud Mary", Beat Club in Germany, and had full length shows filmed at the Royal Albert Hall and in Oakland Arena in 1970 for TV as well as Roundhouse in the UK in 1968, promo videos for "Bootleg", "Looking Out My Back Door", "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" and "Sweet Hitch-Hiker" as well as possible Woodstock footage. Overall it would've made for a decent 2 hour collection of video footage.

What an awesome box set. I have 17 box sets and this is the best one so far. This set features everything by Creedence Clearwater Revival from the very early days of Tommy Fogerty and The Blue Velvets to the Live In Europe Concert. There is a 76 page booklet included giving the history of Creedence and the struggles they had to make it. During the Tommy Fogerty and The Blue Velvets Tom Fogerty took the leads. In the Golliwogs, Tom Fogerty took some of the leads while John did most of them. The sound quality on disc 1 (Velvets and Golliwogs) is not that great but then we have to consider the technology of the early 60s which just wasn't up to the standards we have today. The booklet clearly spells out the progression from the Blue Velvets to the Creedence we all know and love today. It's great to hear how the voices mature over time as you listen to these recording. The thing I love about this set is that the first disc is comprised of the T.F. & The Blue Velvets, then The Golliwogs. Discs 2 through 5 includes all 7 Creedence albums in the order they were released with the track order of each album in tact. Disc 5 has the last studio album and part of The Concert album on it. The Concert album is continued on disc 6 and followed by the Live In Europe album. I have been looking for the Live In Europe album for some time and now I finally have it in this compilation and remastered to boot. If you don't have any Creedence albums and are contemplating buying them, forget it. Buy this box set and you have everything they ever did even the pre-Creedence material which you are probably not going to get. It is well worth the money and all you have to do is pop in all 6 discs in your CD player, sit back and have an evening of Creedence Clearwater Revival without ever having to get up to change the record or disc.

CCR started out as the Rodney Dangerfield of rock music; they got no respect because of their hit singles and popularity. It took some time before national critics caught on to the importance of this quitessential band. This box set collects all the bands albums plus their singles as Golliwogs, The Blue Velvets and a handful of rarities.

The booklet also has an extensive essay by Ben Fong Torres that isn't featured as part of the individual reissued CDs. The sound quality is a huge step in the right direction--the K2 20bit mastering system does justice to these great albums.CCR has been repackaged almost as many times as Elvis (and more than The Beatles or The Stones). There's some complaints about the "whoosing" sound of the symbols due to misalignment that occurs during the mastering. Actually that "whoosing" is also heard on the meticulously (and better I might add) remasters done by Steve Hoffman for DCC released some time back so unless I'm missing something the person who wrote that review is imagining a problem that isn't there.

You could go for the newly remastered hybrid SACDs released by Fantasy but the CD layer is drawn from the same masters and they haven't been remixed for 5.1 on the secondary layer. The music deserves 5 stars (except for "Madri Gras" a clear 3 star album and "Pendulum" a 4 star album with a bit of filler. Also, the "Live in Europe" album sounds music better here but it, too, is not a 5 star performance. It is quite good however hence the 4 stars for the entire set).

This isn't the perfect box set but it's pretty darn close. There are some sound quality flaws (primarily on the pre-CCR recordings) but this is a huge improvement over previous versions.The sound quality blows away the inferior sounding reissues of the late 80's.