Untitled - Concord Music Group

1. DOWN ON THE CORNER (2:46)
2. IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY (2:54)
3. COTTON FIELDS (2:56)
4. POORBOY SHUFFLE (2:25)
5. FEELIN’ BLUE (5:06)
6. FORTUNATE SON (2:19)
7. DON’T LOOK NOW (2:11)
8. THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (4:13)
9. SIDE O’ THE ROAD (3:24)
10. EFFIGY (6:26)
bonus tracks:
www.concordmusicgroup.com
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100 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.
All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction,
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prohibited.
11. FORTUNATE SON (Live In Manchester, England; 9/1/71) (2:13)
12. IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY (Live In Berlin, Germany; 9/16/71) (3:26)
13. DOWN ON THE CORNER (Jam With Booker T. @ Fantasy Studios) (2:49)

Willy and the Poor Boys,
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s fourth album, shows a band in the full
flush of success, following two albums that had spent over a year on the
charts (as this one would do), and powered by two hit singles, one of
which would become an anthem for its times.
Willy came out in late 1969, a period when Creedence, surely the
most anomalous band in the “San Francisco” explosion of the late Sixties,
was also proving to be the most commercial and most reliable seller
of them all.
Creedence wasn’t like the other Bay Area bands of the era (I put San
Francisco in quotes above because many of the key players associated
with the city actually hailed from elsewhere: Quicksilver Messenger
Service from Marin County, Country Joe and the Fish from Berkeley,
and the Grateful Dead from Palo Alto) in that the vision John Fogerty
and his bandmates shared didn’t really admit to much of the jam oriented,
solo intensive experimentalism the other bands engaged in. Creedence
had been raised on Top 40, they’d played Top 40, and

their rebellion against it was more about subverting it from within, using
the same tools as Elvis, Carl Perkins, the Stax Records house band, and
their other heroes. This might have made them “unhip” to the rock-isart
snobs (myself included, I blush to say), but within the San Francisco
fraternity of bands, they were envied for their success and admired for
their instrumental prowess.
Creedence never saw themselves as artists so much as workers doing
a job they enjoyed, a totally different attitude. All of which meant that
Fogerty and his bandmates just kept cranking out the songs. And, because
Fogerty was a naturally gifted writer with a deep sense of rootedness
in his chosen field, most of his songs were great, and the rest
were at least good.
So, with hits like “Born on the Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” “Green River,”
and “Bad Moon Rising” behind them in the previous 18 months, by
the time CCR got to Willy they were on a roll, and it shows.

In many ways, Willy and the Poor Boys is a snapshot of the band’s
entire history. “Down on the Corner” is about the love of playing, pure
and simple: a band like the one in the cover photograph, playing on the
corner for nickles. It recapitulates Creedence’s history as (among other
things) Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets, a band that played for
low wages and all the beer they could drink, churning out the Top 40
in bars and places the band had already memorialized in the song
“Lodi.”
“Cotton Fields” and “Midnight Special” come from the songbook of
Leadbelly, Huddie Ledbetter, the black ex-convict whose adoption by
the earliest proponents of the American folk revival in the 1930s and
’40s brought a huge body of African American blues and pre-blues
music into the mainstream. Fogerty’s mother was a big-time folk fan
and often dragged her enthusiastic child to folk gatherings and concerts
in Berkeley.
“Feelin’ Blue,” I could have sworn, was a cover of an Ike and
Tina Turner song, but it’s not. Instead, it’s a fine example of how the

hythm and blues and early soul music John and his bandmates loved so
much had infiltrated his songwriting: they’d played so many cover versions
of this stuff in their early days that John began to write his own.
“Fortunate Son” laid out something that the anti-war movement of
the times was largely ignoring: those who went to Vietnam were not
those who were in college with student deferments. They were working
class kids who’d been drafted. These people, the band knew (a couple
of them had done military service, too), were an important part of their
fan base.
“Effigy” is another political song whose lyrics aren’t quite as good as
the previously recorded “Bad Moon Rising,” but whose catchy circular
chord progression concludes the album on a can’t-get-it-out-of-yourhead
note. My favorite “lost” Creedence song, “It Came Out of the
Sky,” in which a wacky hillbilly and a UFO have a run in, provides the
right touch of levity. Even the “filler” isn’t bad: “Poorboy Shuffle”
shows they really can play those instruments on the cover (just ask Stu

Cook: the washtub bass is no picnic) and makes a great lead in to
“Feelin’ Blue”; and “Side o’ the Road” is John’s concise answer to the
Guitar God phenomenon of the period (less is more, guys).
Willy and the Poor Boys is the album that finally cracked my pop
snobbery and made me realize that the Kinks weren’t the only great pop
band in the psychedelic era, and that the expansionist/improvisatory approach
to American roots music employed by Quicksilver and the Dead
wasn’t the only way to bring this music into the present. I heard it, and
I went out and bought it, and before I knew it, I was on my way to rethinking
“progressive” rock. I won’t say that Creedence kept me from
becoming a Yes fan (I’d like to think my innate good taste did that), but
they plonked my feet back on the ground and turned my head around
right when I needed it.
Not just me, either: the platinum album they got for this proves that.
— Ed Ward
Ed Ward has been writing about music since 1965. He currently contributes
to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times from Berlin.

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES ON BONUS TRACKS
FORTUNATE SON — Recorded live in Manchester, U.K. on the 1971
European tour by the three-man edition of Creedence, the band’s final
performance, previously unreleased.
IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY — Also previously unreleased and
recorded for the album Live In Europe in Berlin on the 1971 tour.
DOWN ON THE CORNER — From a jam session with Booker T. & the
MGs filmed in 1970 for a TV special at the band’s Berkeley warehouse
rehearsal hall, Cosmo’s Factory, with Fogerty trading licks with MGs
guitarist Steve Cropper, one of Fogerty’s great guitar heroes.
— Joel Selvin
San Francisco Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

1. DOWN ON THE CORNER [2:46]
2. IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY [2:54]
3. COTTON FIELDS [2:56] (Ledbetter)
4. POORBOY SHUFFLE [2:25]
5. FEELIN’ BLUE [5:06]
6. FORTUNATE SON [2:19]
7. DON’T LOOK NOW [2:11]
8. THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL [4:13]
(traditional; arr. by J.C. Fogerty)
9. SIDE O’ THE ROAD [3:24]
10. EFFIGY [6:26]
BONUS TRACKS:
11. FORTUNATE SON
(LIVE IN MANCHESTER, ENGLAND; 9/1/71) [2:13]
12. IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY
(LIVE IN BERLIN, GERMANY; 9/16/71) [3:26]
13. DOWN ON THE CORNER*
(JAM WITH BOOKER T. & THE MGs at FANTASY STUDIOS,
1970) [2:49]
All compositions by J.C. Fogerty except as noted.
* best source available

John Fogerty—lead guitar, vocals
Tom Fogerty—rhythm guitar,
background vocals
Stu Cook—bass, background vocals
Doug Clifford—drums,
background vocals
Produced and arranged
by John Fogerty
Reissue Produced by Chris Clough
Mastered by George Horn Mastering at Fantasy Studios
Liner Notes: Ed Ward & Joel Selvin
Art Direction: Larissa Collins
Design: Geoff Gans
Original cover photos and all outtakes by Basul Parik
Tracks 11& 12recorded by DSR Production
Project Assistance: Rikka Arnold, Bill Belmont, Jennifer Peters
Special Thanks: Robert Smith, Cheryl Pawelski,
Robert Bader, Russ Gary and Jeffrey Spector
www.concordmusicgroup.com
P & c 2008 Concord Music Group, Inc.
100 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. All rights reserved.
Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance
and broadcasting prohibited.

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
WILLY AND THE POOR BOYS 40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION