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"&lt;p&gt;Hailing from El Cerrito, California, Creedence Clearwater Revival should&amp;apos;ve logically been another hippie collective waving flowers in neighboring San Francisco. As these 40th-anniversary editions suggest, leader John Fogerty instead invented an alternate identity for his band based on its otherwise unremarkable 1968 debut album&amp;apos;s rumbling reinvention of a rock oldie. His singing voice swollen with the exaggerated vowels and slurred consonants of shouting Southern bluesmen, Fogerty discovered his songwriting voice on 1969&amp;apos;s auspicious &lt;em&gt;Bayou Country&lt;/em&gt; when he further explored the Louisiana roots of CCR&amp;apos;s hit &amp;quot;Suzie Q&amp;quot; cover. He wasn&amp;apos;t, as his song proclaimed, &amp;quot;born on the bayou.&amp;quot; But he could still conjure a Cajun swamp with a thick and steamy tangle of guitars for the instant classic &amp;quot;Proud Mary.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;The band&amp;apos;s most sustained achievement, 1969&amp;apos;s &lt;em&gt;Green River&lt;/em&gt;, plays to these imagined Southern-gothic strengths. The title-track boogie offers an oasis of bucolic childhood memories to hide in when &amp;quot;the world is smolderin&amp;apos;.&amp;quot; That&amp;apos;s also the state of affairs in &amp;quot;Bad Moon Rising,&amp;quot; which wraps a blithe rockabilly swing around a soothsayer&amp;apos;s ominous vision of oncoming apocalypse. &amp;quot;Hope you are quite prepared to die&amp;quot; might be the most confrontational Vietnam War-era lyric to ever charm AM radio.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;The quartet&amp;apos;s relatively relaxed fourth album, 1969&amp;apos;s &lt;em&gt;Willy and the Poor Boys&lt;/em&gt;, nevertheless upped the anger ante on &amp;quot;Fortunate Son,&amp;quot; which rages against class-based draft inequality with rare, beat-driven fury: Even Dylan couldn&amp;apos;t pen a protest song that makes you wanna dance. CCR&amp;apos;s commercial apex, 1970&amp;apos;s &lt;em&gt;Cosmo&amp;apos;s Factory&lt;/em&gt;, stacked Fogerty&amp;apos;s peak songwriting streak &amp;#x2014; check the particularly stellar storybook whimsy of &amp;quot;Lookin&amp;apos; Out My Back Door&amp;quot; &amp;#x2014; against divergent Motown, Sun Records and Bo Diddley roots tributes that all proved the same point: CCR blended anxious soul rhythms with loose country twang to embody a haunted but harmonious America. But it couldn&amp;apos;t last. Their guitarist, John&amp;apos;s brother Tom Fogerty, split after the recording of 1970&amp;apos;s uneven &lt;em&gt;Pendulum&lt;/em&gt;, and the rest soon unraveled &amp;#x2014; not even John could ever regain CCR&amp;apos;s telepathic groove. Unfinished demos and ragged live cuts scattered across these reissues similarly add little to the group&amp;apos;s legacy: Hammering out six albums in three years, Creedence couldn&amp;apos;t afford to shelve anything worthy.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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