The Four Members of Creedence Clearwater Revival Invented The Swamp Rock Genre

If a man works as a musicologist, then he is a musicologist, irrespective of specific degree. Conversely, you aren't going to find a M. D. without a medical degree.

 

Yeah, maybe, actually—no, you're wrong, that's that. Just show me the dissertations in "Rolling Stone" ok? Your argument is a non sequitur.

 

[crickets chirp]

You have yet to produce a single expert to back up your claims.

 

I used to work at Ray Avery's Rare Records. Only a year, my own fault. Anyway, Barry Hansen was a regular. There was a wall of 45's, something like six feet high by about fifteen feet in length. He'd spend a considerable amount of time seeking out the rare and crapulent on that wall. I suspect that if the good Doctor were to write upon the subject of Popular music, the Demented One would be more concerned with Blassie, King of Men and Shaving Cream than top 40 hit makers of the 1960's. Novelty records are the good Doctor's bailiwick. I'm just saying'.

 

It's understandable that a man would want to pretend that he and his friends are really important like doctors, isn't it? They even go into Creedence threads and try to impress others with their supposed importance by explaining how much they are like doctors and lawyers.

 

Who's "we" ?

 

What?

 

Anyone can look up medical conditions on the internet and make a self-diagnosis, but that doesn't make them a doctor.

Just like you can read a wikipedia entry, or read a rolling stone article and make statements of fact about music, but that doesn't make you a musicologist.

Musicology is a recognized profession and has been for as long as there have been physicians. Nobody is saying they are equal, but is it is standard in both professions to have either a PhD (music) or MD (doctor). There is a huge difference between a music journalist and a musicologist.

I have no problem with the OP original post. Sure, why not credit the guys in CCR for inventing Swamp Music. If Bill Monroe gets credit for inventing Bluegrass it seems fair. And I also see no reason a new genre name can't start in a magazine like Rolling Stone, it doesn't require a musicology degree to contribute to the field, popular publications have a long history of introducting valid new terms of description.

I just wish the OP could understand what people have been trying to explain over and over again and maybe this could turn into a discussion about a great band. It seems more like an attempt to collect validation.

I love CCR, I think they captured something unique and very traditional American. They did for swamp music what the Stones did for blues rock. I think you could enlarge the scope of swamp music and include many bands from the 70s and find influences of CCR in all of them. The infusion of swamp beats and dirty guitar sound with chart topping pop songwriting has always been a favorite of mine.

 

And so-called "Swamp Rock" was a pre-existing musical idiom that John Fogerty and company managed to make a career out of.

But:

 

Well said.

 

I wish the OP didn't use the term musicologist. I invented the term. A musicologist is like a proctologist but has a stereo instead of gloves.

 

I completly agree. Just like bluegrass music existed before Bill Monroe, country music existed before Jimmy Rogers and the Carter Family and delta blues existed before Robert Johnson.

So much of the music I so dearly love is somebody taking something that already existed and putting into a marketable form. And I think the value of a thread like this is exposing folks to pre-existing influences we might not be aware of. Dale Hawkins is the man, and if people haven't heard him before they should take the time to explore. My favorite tune of his is Cross-Ties. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lIr86pwOdr4

 

Ouch...

 

Nicholas Slonimsky would approve of your analysis.

 

Fair, with the qualification that these claims are, as you know, simplifications that distort history. Certain musicians/groups add a certain ingredient or two---ingredients that may or may not be especially significant---to an existing style of music and are then credited with having invented a genre. And in other cases the "inventors" are actually "popularizers".

 

Exactly!

 

Except that we're not talking about swamp music or Swamp Pop. We're talking about the Swamp Rock genre.

 

"Genre" is a bin card in a record store. The employees of said record store can determine what goes into that bin. It is not the sort of subdivision of music that obeys hard and fast rules, more like a set of potential descriptors.

 

That's fine, edit my post to say Swamp Rock genre rather than swamp music. I am sorry I typed the wrong word and I should have double checked my post. It doesn't change any of the points I was trying to make. I like CCR and remain interested in talking about them, and discussing how one artist can be the popular face for an entire natural progression of music even when there are many others making similar music before, during and after. For a brief moment this conversation was actually taking a positive turn...

 

You tried. Don't worry, you're not the first one who tried without success with S.P....

 

Crucially, CCR didn't invent swamps. Further complicating the matter is defining 'swamp.' As related to bayous or salt, brackish, or fresh water inlets, or the more recent term: wetlands. Then theres the latitude aspect. (I like the alternate take of 'Born On the Bog').

 

I'd like to start a thread that has a poll voting which of these two are my favorite posts of the thread. I don't know how to do that though, if only I had an advanced degree in internetology.

 

Bayous, naturally.

 

Slim Harpo x Little Richard through the prism of John Fogerty = CCR

 

You guys are making my head spin - I think I'm gonna turn off the computer and go listen to Green River.