John Fogerty Forever Young

I just watched a John Fogerty concert from The Wiltern Theater in L.A. that was shot probably last September, about a year ago. They had the September date but not the year. It was great. When Saul Zaentz was alive Fogerty refused to perform any Credence Clearwater Revival tunes since it would cause Zaentz to grow even richer on his tunes but since he's died John's on a CCR tear. I'm sure he pulls in a much bigger crowd with the CCR songs then he did with just his solo material. He was in great form, looked great and sang great. He had the energy of a twenty year old and much more than his band mates who were probably in their thirties had. Thank God for hair dye, and rock and roll. 

The interesting thing about this show that I want to bring up here is that even though Fogerty changed guitars EVERY SINGLE SONG, they always sounded like John Fogerty. And I don't mean he cycled through three or four but seemed to have a different guitar for every tune. It seemed like a guitar fashion show. I assume it was either to show off his VERY IMPRESSIVE guitar collection or to make sure he stayed in tune, he plays them pretty hard. It did illustrate how a guitar makes only a minimal contribution to a musician's sound. He sounded the same, except for minor distortion / clean effects, on every song no matter if he was playing a Gibson Les Paul, a 335, a Fender Strat or a Tom Anderson. It really is the player and not the instrument that gives a musician his unique sound. 

I was always a fan of Credence and my garage band in the Sixties and early Seventies used to play a lot of their songs. Fogerty was someone, along with Neil Young, whose guitar solos I could reasonably imitate as a teenage lead guitarist. 

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