The swamp crooner responsible for many a gold albums (made up of countless golden hits recorded by his most famous band Creedence Clearwater Revival) has announced that he's recorded some new music under the guise of one of his previous music alter egos. Back in 1973, after CCR sadly disbanded, John Fogerty released a little noticed album called the "Blue Ridge Rangers". The album went well under the radar for most of his CCR fans, but for those of who were able to get a hold of the music (maybe years later during the Napster era?) were treated to some great covers of some classic country and gospel songs. For the Blue Ridge Ranger album, Fogerty meticulously played all the instruments on every song (along with his regular throat stripping duties), something he insisted on doing also for his follow-up 1975 release "John Fogerty", as well as his 1985 "comeback" release "Centerfield".
The old man down the road has said he has reprised his own sound with a sequel to the original called "John Fogerty: The Return of the Blue Ridge Rangers". This time around, Fogerty doled out some help from Buddy Miller (guitar), Dennis Crouch (bass), Jay Bellerose and Kenny Aronoff (sticks), along with Greg Leisz (rounding out the instrumentation). Fogerty is putting out his feelers for a hopeful CD release of the recordings and a possible live tour to support the album (why do we still call them albums?) and hopes are that he does.
Fogerty's latest hopeful new product intro is much like an automobile manufacturer re-releasing a tried but true classic (like early Ford Mustangs), but re-engineering them to have more modern styling to fit current consumer tastes. In Fogerty's case, the sales of the original Rangers album were not that great, but the sound was truly classic. Fogerty believes that the public is now better ready to listen to his classic Blue Ridge Ranger sound, and based on the sound of the first, I think he may be right...
