Dave's 500 Bus Albums No 11 - Creedance Clearwater Revival "Creedance Clearwater Revival" (1968)

In 1978 I bought a copy of the "New Musical Express Encyclopedia of Rock" book. For the next 10 years it became my bible of what rock music I liked, what I might like, and what I should avoid. I remember seeing the entry for Creedance Clearwater Revival, but never read it. For some inexplicable reason I got them mixed up with Fairport Convention and assumed they were a folk band. I didn't really like folk music so I gave them a wide birth.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm round my parents' house in Kent. There's some very tasty R&B coming through the speakers. I ask them who it is, and of course it turns out to be Creedance. I've also now since found out that they recorded "Bad Moon Rising" (popularized by the film "An American Werewolf in London").

This, their first album, is so not what I expected. It comes from those couple of years surrounding the Woodstock Festival when American musicians suddenly discovered how much more interesting an instrument the guitar could be when you plug in a couple of effects pedals and muck about with the settings on your amp. Inidentally, Creedance played at Woodstock in '69 but unfortunately it was at 3am in the morning, so they didn't end up being recorded for either the album or the film.

The stereo separation is a bit distracting, especially with headphones on, and most noticeably on the track "Suzie Q" where the vocals come out of the right speaker and the guitar comes out of the left. But that's the only gripe I have with this album. Tight as a drum, but with that hypnotic quality typical of post-psychedelia, this is pure and simple good old American Rock n Roll.

Dave's 500 Bus Albums. No. 1 - Virus "Remember" (1973)

An occasional series dedicated to the my 45-minute bus journey to work...which is just long enough for me to listen to two albums per day.


Apparently often labelled as "krautrock" (simply because they were German!), Virus were a band from Westphalia who produced just two LPs in 1971, and are a perfect example of that forgotten hard rock sound that flourished in between the Psychedelic swan-song of Woodstock and the birth of Glam circa 1973. A sound that I love. Think Ten Years After, Pink Fairies, even Grand Funk.

Released in 1973 (and re-released on CD in 2004), this final album is simply a live broadcast for Radio, recorded in Koln in April that year, which is probably why it's mono. The sound though is excellent. You can hear echoes of Jefferson Airplane in there, and a bit of Traffic, but the main thing that stands out is that this is a good old rock & roll band without a trace of self-indulgence. Where are they now? Who knows. They burned briefly and they didn't burn brightly, but they acquitted themselves well while they were here, and it's a shame they weren't around longer.

I will be interested to see if I can dig up the other two albums ("Revelation" and "Thoughts"). Meanwhile this album will be staying on the mp3 player for a while.