I GOT MYSONGS BACK
1969. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The Vietnam War divided a generation. Nearly half a million people descended on Woodstock. And a 24-year-old John Fogerty was holding a Rickenbacker guitar while writing and performing songs that would become part of the soundtrack of our lives.
That same guitar was on the stage at Casino Rama tonight.
Not one like it.
That one.
Fogerty picked it up, told us some of its story, wrapped his hands around the neck and began to play. For a moment, 2026 and 1969 seemed to occupy the same room.
Five words. But if you know John Fogerty’s story, you understand just how much they mean.
Imagine writing Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Fortunate Son, Green River, Down on the Corner, Who’ll Stop the Rain, Have You Ever Seen the Rain? and so many other songs that became embedded in popular culture — and then spending decades without control of the songs you created.
Fogerty did.
It became one of rock music’s longest and most painful business stories. Eventually, the story changed. After more than half a century, he regained a majority interest in the publishing rights to his legendary catalogue.
He got his songs back.
And tonight, you could feel what that meant. This was not John Fogerty reluctantly revisiting his past. He was celebrating it.
1969 — WHAT A YEAR TO BE 24
Consider what happened during that one extraordinary year. Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Woodstock happened. Vietnam dominated the news. The Beatles gave their final public performance. The Boeing 747 took its first flight. And Creedence Clearwater Revival seemed to be coming out of every radio in North America.
Proud Mary. A riverboat rolling down the river became one of the defining songs of Fogerty’s career.
Bad Moon Rising. An incredibly upbeat melody carrying a warning that something was not quite right. For a generation living through Vietnam, protests and enormous social change, perhaps that contradiction made perfect sense.
Then came Green River. Down on the Corner. Fortunate Son. Born on the Bayou.
The hits did not trickle out. They poured out.
Fogerty wasn’t writing about Hollywood. He wrote about rivers, roads, working people, soldiers, hardship, ordinary neighbourhoods and getting through life. Maybe that is one reason these songs still resonate so strongly with working families and Union members.
There was grit in them.
FORTUNATE SON
Then came a song that needed barely two minutes to make its point.
Fortunate Son.
America was sending young men to Vietnam. Some came from privilege. Many came from working-class homes. Fogerty put that divide into music.
More than half a century later, the opening guitar riff remains instantly recognizable.
That is the extraordinary thing about these songs. We remember not only what they sounded like.
We remember what was happening when we heard them.
WOODSTOCK
August 1969. Mud. Rain. Hundreds of thousands of young people. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. The Who. Santana. And Creedence Clearwater Revival.
John Fogerty walked onto that stage carrying his Rickenbacker.
The same guitar that ultimately found its way onto the Casino Rama stage tonight.
Think of everything that happened between those two performances. Presidents came and went. Wars began and ended. The Berlin Wall fell. Man went from walking on the moon to carrying a computer in his pocket.
Eight-track tapes became cassettes. Cassettes became CDs. CDs became downloads. Downloads became streaming.
Yet somehow…
Down on the Corner still sounds like Down on the Corner.
WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN?
The calendar turned to 1970. Creedence kept rolling.
You don’t need to know what year these songs were released to know them.
You’ve heard them in cars. At cottages. On factory radios. At backyard barbecues. At hockey arenas. On long drives home.
Maybe your parents played them. Maybe you played them for your kids. And now some of us are playing them for our grandchildren.
That is when a hit song becomes something else.
It becomes part of our history.
THEN BASEBALL CALLED
Fast-forward to 1985. Fogerty was no longer the 24-year-old kid from Creedence. The world had changed. Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers were rewriting hockey records. Michael Jordan was beginning a career that would transform basketball. Computers were moving into our homes.
And John Fogerty stepped up to the plate with another song.
Centerfield.
Put me in, Coach.
Four words and you’re at the ballpark.
Then came another unmistakable Fogerty record: The Old Man Down the Road.
Different decade. Same voice. Same guitar-driven sound. Same John Fogerty.
BUT TONIGHT WASN’T REALLY ABOUT LOOKING BACK
That’s where this story takes another turn.
Because standing beside John Fogerty tonight were his sons.
A father playing songs he wrote more than half a century ago alongside his own children.
There was also an excellent sax player who added another dimension to an exceptionally tight band.
Watch Fogerty with his sons and something becomes obvious.
He’s having fun.
Real fun.
There is a difference between performing because you have to and performing because there is nowhere else you’d rather be.
Tonight looked very much like the latter.
Three generations were represented in that room: the generation that bought the original records, their children, and their grandchildren — all singing the same words.
AND THEN HE INTRODUCED JULIE
Perhaps one of the warmest moments of the evening had nothing to do with a hit record.
Fogerty introduced his wife, Julie, to the sold-out Casino Rama crowd.
He spoke about their recently celebrated 35th wedding anniversary and 40 years together.
Forty years.
In an industry not exactly famous for longevity, that received an ovation of its own.
And Julie’s role in this story is particularly fitting. She helped bring something else home — that old Rickenbacker.
So tonight, the picture became complete.
His wife was there.
His sons were beside him.
His guitar was back in his hands.
And his songs belonged to him again.
FULL CIRCLE
In 1969, John Fogerty was a young man with a Rickenbacker guitar and absolutely no idea where the next 57 years would take him.
Tonight, that young man’s guitar was back in his hands.
Some songs sell millions of records. Some reach number one. Some win awards.
But a very small number accomplish something much harder.
They attach themselves to our lives.
You hear one and suddenly you remember where you were. Who you were with. What you drove. Where you worked. Who you loved.
And sometimes, who isn’t here anymore to hear it with you.
That’s the power of music.
And that’s what made tonight different.
At 80 years old, John Fogerty stood before a sold-out Canadian crowd with his family around him, his old guitar in his hands and thousands of people singing words he wrote as a young man.
He got his guitar back. He got control of his music back. And after 35 years of marriage and 40 years together, the woman who helped him through the journey was there to see it.
John Fogerty did.
The funny thing is, for the millions of us who grew up with them, they never really went anywhere.