John Fogerty looked back on the years he spent feeling humiliated and embarrassed after selling his legendry music catalogue in 1980.
As a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival, he had written some rock music’s greatest hits between 1969 and 1970, such as Corn the Bayou, Green River, Bad Moon Rising, and many more.
However, he lost the ownership of his songs to Fantasy Records. Fogerty did this because it was the only way to escape a bad contract he was stuck in.
In an appearance at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Fortunate Son crooner said, “I worked really hard during that time.”
“I mean, I was up, you know, most of the night writing and all that,” he said. “I was driven. I was manic, you know? I wanted to get way up high. I refused to be mediocre.”
Despite his dedication, he admitted that he “got snookered out of the ownership.”
For the next 50 years, Fogerty lived with the painful feeling that he had thrown away not only control of his life’s work but also a fortune.
“I just felt like a sap, a sucker, ” he said. “Somebody would come up to me and tell me how they loved a song, that ‘Proud Mary’ is something, and I’d kind of feel a little bit like a fool.”
50 years later in 2023, the Grammy Award winner purchased a majority stake in the CCR catalogue from Concord Records, which had assumed ownership following the sale of Fantasy.
Fogerty went on to say, “Getting them back, it was just like an instant esteem booster.”
After regaining the rights, Fogerty re-recoded the classics for new album, Legacy, The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, since he still doesn’t and probably never will own the original masters.
