It was by way of the novels of Stephen King that I became aware of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, and subsequently their mainman, John Fogerty, who released this critically acclaimed solo album in 1985.

I recall reading the review of the album in Sounds , one of the music weeklies of the time, the critic Sandy Robertson had opined that the lyrics from ‘The Old Man Down The Road’ would be good quoted in a Stephen King novel ; the following year , as coincidence might have it , there was indeed a reference in King’s 1986 novel ‘It’, near the end of the book where Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier, the DJ in the novel, receives a call from Bill Denbrough, one of the other central characters in the novel, who comments on the music playing in the background from his answering machine, Richie’s response to this was ‘Shit that ain’t Creedence, that’s “Rock and Roll Girls” from Fogerty’s new album ‘Centerfield’ its called’.

So , here were two references from sources I admired, the favourite author and the revered music critic from Sounds, both were good enough endorsements for me . Most music fans I knew at the time were aware of the song ‘Proud Mary’ by Ike and Tina Turner, from pub jukeboxes or maybe on the radio, but had no idea that John Fogerty had written it . Who’s John Fogerty ?, they all said. I would like to assume that most folk ‘of a certain age’ will have heard Dave Edmunds’ version of ‘Almost Saturday Night’ or Status Quo’s ‘Rocking All Over The World’, you know, the one they played at Live Aid, just two of the well known songs from the repertoire of the great Mr Fogerty. I was familiar with Creedence’s music from the cassette version of ‘Cosmo’s Factory’, which I liked a lot ( especially the tracks ‘Travelin’ Band’ and ‘Up Around The Bend’), and a Best of Creedence Clearwater Revival swapped from my brother, I also knew of their appearance on the Woodstock Festival Soundtrack album having heard it courtesy of a friend’s elder brother, back in the day when folk lent out LPs to friends. It wasn’t my usual thing, but as time marched on, my musical tastes became more eclectic, varied, catholic, call it what you will, my enthusiasm for their music grew. At the time, the Sony Walkman was the preferred listening gadget if you wanted to have music on the go at all times, so cassettes as well as albums comprised my listening diet, and of course we had the mixtapes from friends, recordings of radio broadcasts, and of albums we couldn’t afford. If it was good music it was good music, full stop, whatever the generic label .Were Creedence country rock, folk-rock, psychedelic, blues -rock? Probably all of these and more, they were a classic American rock band, they had it all, a veritable musical gumbo. ‘Centerfield’ was occupied a similar ball park , if you’ll excuse the pun, the term ‘centerfield’ being a baseball position. Ranging from the rockabilly Elvis tribute of ‘Big Train ( From Memphis) ‘, to the swampy soul stew of ‘Searchlight’, to the sparse, blues-ish ‘The Old Man Down The Road’ ( not a million miles away from Mark Knopfler or J.J. Cale in guitar picking style) and all points in between.

Around this time, there was a new wave of bands from the States, who were going under the banners of ‘cow-punk’, ‘alt-country’, or later ‘Americana’ bands like the Long Ryders, Jason and the Scorchers, Los Lobos and The Blasters, bands who paid tribute to the musical heritage of their country, as well as what was current, ‘We got the Louisiana boogie and the delta blues, We got the country swing and rockabilly too, We got jazz, country western and Chicago blues, its the greatest music that you’ll ever know!’, as The Blasters put it in their song ‘American Music’ and it was great to see that the old guard like John Fogerty fitted in with that , along with folk like John Cougar Mellencamp, and Bruce Springsteen.