Even by the standards of the 1960s, when big-ticket acts were expected to satiate their market with a seemingly endless torrent of recorded output and live appearances, 1969 was a prolific year for Creedence Clearwater Revival. First formed two years previous, but really the full-flowering of earlier bands the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs, the Oakland-based quartet had suddenly gone from music biz strugglers to full-blown celebrities. After so long a wait, nothing was going to dissuade them from maximizing their moment. CCR released three brilliant albums in 1969, each with a tangible claim on genius. January’s Bayou Country yielded the classics “Born on the Bayou” and “Keep on Chooglin.” August’s Green River produced yet more canonical material: “Lodi,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and the title track. Even the Beatles at their vaulting creative heights never released three great records in a 12-month span. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s November release, Willy and the Poor Boys, managed that very trick.

Just how CCR arrived at their signature, seamless melding of soul, rock, and folk remains an ephemeral mystery worthy of one of John Fogerty’s sharply drawn but strangely gnomic compositions. Their best songs—and they had an astonishing number of songs that could be considered their best—groove in a manner unlike any other: simultaneously efficient and unhurried, often building entire worlds in three-minutes-and-under at a time when many of their peers would take twice as long to get half as far. There is a certain strangeness as well as to their persona: four working-class kids from Oakland who became so adept at channeling the majesty of Stax and Motown that their music was frequently mistaken as having been made by African American artists, just as had been the case when Elvis Presley emerged 15 years previous. Steeped in the early-rock and blues mythos of the deep South, they were also taken for Southerners, and understandably so. When Fogerty sang of being born on the Bayou, it was with a conviction few would think to doubt.

At a time when it had become common for popular acts to extend their shows to epic lengths—Led Zeppelin concerts of the era had begun to run to three hours—Fogerty decided that Creedence should go the other way. For the 45 minutes the band was onstage, the music was tense and thrilling. But after 45 minutes the band was done. With very few exceptions, no matter the audience desire, there were no encores.

It’s a small point but an important one. Why would this most populist of popular bands dare court the critique that they were stingy with their rabid audience? The decision even caused some rancor within the group. Some members of the band believed, reasonably enough, that encores were a way of thanking the fans. Fogerty regarded them as phony under any circumstances. Neither was wrong, but Fogerty’s intractable stance said something crucial about the way CCR was always both old and new. By limiting show lengths to single concentrated outbursts of intensity, Creedence both honored the shock-and-awe, blink-and-you-miss-it character of early rock and the don’t-care-at-all-if-you-miss-it brevity of punk. Indeed, in 1969 only CCR’s Detroit-based counterparts the Stooges were so directly anticipating a less-is-more future. Fogerty’s draconian set times were never intended to cheat the consumer, and in fact the opposite held true: any second you weren’t fully present was a moment wasted.

Since I couldn’t make it thru the AC/DC journey, I’ve decided CCR will be my next deep dive. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Just a handful of albums.

Since I couldn’t make it thru the AC/DC journey, I’ve decided CCR will be my next deep dive. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Just a handful of albums.