"The newspapers came
and made Jody a
National Hero"

THE BLUE MOON SWAMP
JOHN FOGERTY INTERVIEWS
1997/1998

• The AUDIO Magazine  Blue Moon Swamp Interview, 1998
  "The Artists as Producer". In a nine-pages interview by Audio Magazine's Daniel Levitin, John Fogerty looks back, this time on his work as producer for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Plus his most controversial statements yet on the life of the classic band. Full Text.
  

• The LOS ANGELES TIMES article on Blue Moon Swamp
  Robert Hillburn, L.A. Times music editor's article on John Fogerty and Blue Moon Swamp on Sunday, May 4, 1997, three weeks before release of Blue Moon Swamp. Full Text.
  

• ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE REVIEWS BLUE MOON SWAMP
  Issue 762 dated June 17 features Rolling Stone Magazine review of Blue Moon Swamp. Four stars out of five are awarded to the album, whose review opens this week's Reviews section. The article has a watercolor painting of John Fogerty's face before a microphone with a blue bayou background. The text of the review is still available at the Rolling Stone Web Site [page will open in a new window]
  

• TIME MAGAZINE REVIEWS BLUE MOON SWAMP, 1997
  Jay Cocks, the same writer that did the Times Magazine Centerfield review, writes now about Blue Moon Swamp. The article "Song of Survival" was published in the June 2 issue of Time Magazine and is currently available at the Time Magazine -Pathfinder Website.
  

• GUITAR WORLD JULY INTERVIEW
  Guitar World Magazine published  a lenghty John Fogerty Interview  in its July 97. The interview, posted later to the Guitar World Website is no longer available. Excerpts:
  "GUITAR WORLD: Why did it take you 11 years to put out this record?
  JOHN FOGERTY: I ask you, who says you have to put out a record more often than every 10 years? [laughs] Well, it was a long time..."

• JOHN FOGERTY INTERVIEW AT ADDICTED TO NOISE WEB
  Michael Goldberg interviews John Fogerty at the Addicted to Noise Web Site, on line May 1st, 1997 "The Triumphant Return of John Fogerty". Fogerty talks about Creedence, his retirement years, how he was challenged by the dobro, how Blue Moon Swamp came to be. Fogerty  on the other Creedence members: " I showed them how to play the drums and the bass and the rhythm guitar and I arranged every song..." "But because I created this alter ego thing, this Creedence thing, it was allowed to kind of bubble under in an unspoken way, kind of like a deformed half brother in the closet or something." 
  

• EL DOMINICAL INTERVIEW
  El Periódico de Catalunya´s Sunday supplement highly controversial interview of John Fogerty (September 1997). Full text, free translation by The River Rising Web.
  
  

• JOHN FOGERTY MAKES THE COVER OF GOLDMINE
  JCF is cover artist in the latest issue from Golmine magazine. There's a nice big John Fogerty picture on the cover, and several (some rare) nice CCR and Fogerty pictures inside plus a discography, which, as most of us will know by now is wrong again and incomplete. But still a several pages interesting article to read. Goldmine, July 18, 1997. Goldmine Website: www.krause.com/goldmine. Reported by Robert Aerts, Belgium. The author of the article, a River Rising Member, has promised us a copy "soon" for posting.
  
  
  
  
• FOGERTY INTERVIEW IN SWEDEN
  From an interview with the Swedish POP Magazine, #25 (reported  and translated by River Rising Member  Michael Bernander):
  "I was alone when I made that music. I was alone when I made the arrangements, I was alone when I added background vocals, guitars and some other stuff. I was alone when I produced and mixed the albums. The other guys showed up only for rehearsals and the days we made the actual recordings.
  "- For me Creedence was like sitting on a time bomb. We'd had decent successes with our cover of Suzie Q and with the first album, when we went into the studio to cut Proud Mary. It was the first time we were in a real Hollywood studio, RCA's Los Angeles studio, and the problems started immediately. The other guys in the band insisted on writing songs for the new album, they had opinions on the arrangments, they wanted to sing. They went as far as adding background vocals to Proud Mary, and it sounded awful. They used tambourines, and it sounded no better.
  "-That's when I understood I had a choice to make. At that point in time we were just a one hit wonder, and Suzie Q hadn't really been that big a hit. Either this (the new album) would be a success, something really big, or we might as well start working at the car wash again. There was a big row. We went to an Italian restaurant and I remember that I very clearly told the others that I for one didn't want to go back to the car wash again. Now we had to make the best possible album and it wasn't important who did what, as long as the result was the very best we could achieve. And of course I was the one who should do it.
  "-I don't think the others really understood what I meant, but at least I could manage the situation the way I wanted. The result was eight million- selling double-sided singles in a row and six albums, who all went platinum. And Melody Maker had us as the best band in the world. That was after the Beatles split, but still... And I was the one who had created all
  this. Despite that, I don't think they understood what I was talking about./.../ They were obsessed with the idea of more control and more influence. So finally the bomb exploded and we never worked together again."