John Fogerty's Musical Revival

At the age of 60, after many years of near silence, one of rock 'n' roll's greatest is rockin' again.

Back on tour, John Fogerty is reclaiming his music and his past.

Some 35 years ago as lead singer and creative force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival he wrote hit after hit after hit.

But behind these happy tunes is a sad story. For years, decades actually, embroiled in a legal battle over rights, Fogerty refused to sing his own songs, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.

"Because I'm a pretty happy guy now, you know, I don't look at it at this point and go, grrrrr lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit," Fogerty explains.

In 1964, with two school friends and his older brother Tom, Fogerty signed with a small recording company, Fantasy Records. After trying names like "The Golliwogs" and "Blue Velvet" a TV show on water pollution inspired Fogerty to rename the group "Creedence Clearwater Revival".

Fogerty's buzzsaw voice--he calls it the swamp critter--gave Creedence a distinctive sound. The music's roots were southern, though Fogerty grew up in suburban San Francisco.

"I was probably pretty much a middle class white boy. Because of the music I loved it grew into this, into the way I wanted to express myself," Fogerty says.

Finally Creedence had their first hit, "Susie Q," but Fogerty worried they'd be a one-hit wonder. He calls it the sophomore jinx.

"You've got the spotlight and everyone says 'Well?' but if what you do is crap, then they go 'Right. I knew that.' and they move on, and you never get the spotlight again, ever," Fogerty says.

"And I took that seriously, really, I just didn't want to go back to the carwash," Fogerty says.

In a frantic three years, Fogerty wrote six platinum albums, 10 gold singles and made Creedence a rock legend.

Creedence, for a brief time, was maybe number one in the world. Certainly a close two to the Beatles, Blackstone opines.

But success created strains. Creedence broke up and Fogerty discovered the recording contract he'd signed as a teenager turned out to be very lucrative.

"And a lot of money was made. You know, most of which went somewhere other than myself," Fogerty claims.

Fantasy Records claimed it owned all the songs Fogerty wrote for Creedence. The result: Fogerty had to turn his back on the band as well as all the music he recorded as a member of Creedence.

Fogerty spent years in angry court battles with Fantasy. In the meantime, because his songs were musical shorthand that spelled out "The Sixties," many moviemakers put them in their soundtracks, like "Bad Moon Rising" in "The Big Chill."

"Born on the Bayou" in "Born on the 4th of July," his anti-war anthem "Fortunate Son" turned up in "Forrest Gump" and even in a commercial to sell jeans. All the time, licensed without his approval.

"I'm saying that very delicately, or nicely. You know, I was cheated. But somebody got a huge amount of money," Fogerty says.

For years he couldn't or wouldn't make any more music. Then finally in 1985 he made a comeback with a homerun. His joyous ode to baseball, "Centerfield," quickly became a staple in most ballparks and a natural for the baseball-loving movie "Bull Durham."

But Fantasy Records sued Fogerty for copyright infringement with the novel claim that he sounded too much like himself.

"The fact that I would somehow survive and then flourish after 15 or 18 years or whatever, drove them crazy," Fogerty says.

Eventually Fogerty won the right to sound like himself, but consumed by anger, frustration and lawsuits he bottomed out. "I turned around and looked at the prison I'd been held in for 15 years, and I got really pissed off until about 10 minutes after I met my wife," Fogerty intimates.

Julie, 15 years younger, barely knew Fogerty's music when they met in an Indianapolis restaurant.

"His career had basically stopped," Julie recalls.

But then one day when she came home, Julie says, "I remember walking into the house and hearing him playing, and strumming that guitar.
And I remember just standing in the, the foyer, just jumping up and down, so excited and thrilled, that maybe, maybe we're gonna get through this thing. You know."

Fogerty was playing again, but still largely estranged from the music he wrote for Creedence. That all changed this year when he resigned with Fantasy Records after the label was taken over by new owners, Concord Music.

Fogerty is even being paid royalties again on all those Creedence hits and he's just released a new CD, 25 songs spanning his whole career.

But Fogerty's life now is about a lot more than music.

John and Julie have Shane, 14, and Tyler, 13. The boys have only recently seen John on stage.

There's Lindsay, 21, from Julie's first marriage. John has kids from a previous marriage, too.

And then there's Kelsey, 4-years-old. To call her a daddy's girl doesn't quite capture it.

"She's a princess. She's beautiful," Fogerty says.

He wrote a song for Kelsey, titled "I Will Walk With You," for a solo CD of new music he released last year.

The title song, "Déjà Vu," is another anti-war offering, same perspective, different war. This time it's Iraq he's protesting; still liberal after all these years.

"I have held onto my liberal beliefs. It makes people uncomfortable sometimes," Fogerty admits.

He joined the "Vote for Change" tour during the 2004 election campaign. And of course he brought the house down with "Fortunate Son."

And now he can look at the gold records from the past and see his future. John Fogerty is loving his revival.

Fogerty concludes, "You know, aside from my children and marrying the most beautiful woman in the world, the feeling of playing and making people happy, is maybe the second-best feeling in life, at least for me."