John Fogerty is Finally Reunited with his Songs After 50 Years

It's official, according to Billboard Magazine, John Fogerty has gained worldwide control of his Creedence Clearwater Revival publishing rights after a half-century struggle. He just posted the following on his Facebook page. "As of this January, I own my own songs again. This is something I thought would never be a possibility. After 50 years, I am finally reunited with my songs."

To think about the CCR catalogue is to relive my pre-teen years. The band's most prolific and successful period began in 1969 when I was about to turn 10. For two years, CCR had a dozen consecutive top 10 singles and five consecutive top 10 albums. The band broke up in 1972, but by then we already had all of those great songs: "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi," "Proud Mary," "Green River," "Down on the Corner," "Have You Ever Seen The Rain," "Heard it Through the Grapevine," "Run Through the Jungle," "Up Around the Bend," "Travelin' Man," "Long as I Can See the Light" and "Lookin' Out My Back Door." "Suzie Q" had already been a bit in 1968.

My favorite CCR songs were "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi" and "Proud Mary." I have a recording of my brother, Ronnie, age eight, and myself, age eleven, jamming to "Proud Mary." He is singing and playing drums and I am playing piano and singing the repeat line on the word, "Rollin'."

Fogerty had relinquished his artist royalties to Saul Zaentz at Fantasy Records in 1980 to get out of his Fantasy deal. “I tried really hard,” he says to get them back in the decades since he signed his label and publishing deal in 1968 with Fantasy but suffered setback after setback at the hands of Zaentz, who died in 2014.

For years, Fogerty refused to play CCR songs live, unable to stomach Zaentz making money off his performances, but he softened his stance in 1987 with a little prodding from Bob Dylan during a concert in Hollywood that included Dylan, Fogerty and George Harrison. “The crowd started asking for ‘Proud Mary. Bob said, ‘John, if you don’t do ‘Proud Mary,’ everybody’s gonna think it’s a Tina Turner song,’” referencing Ike & Tina Turner’s 1971 cover. Fogerty sang the song and later that year, began incorporating CCR songs back into his set list.

When Concord bought Fantasy Records in 2004, one of the first moves the company made was to reinstate and increase Fogerty’s artist royalties, which he hadn't received in 25 years. Under the new agreement, Concord retains the CCR master recordings already in its catalog and will continue to administer Fogerty’s share of the publishing catalog for an unspecified limited time.

Fact #1: CCR’s Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits, released in 1976, has spent 622 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200, the fifth highest of any album on the chart.

Fact #2: The music of Creedence Clearwater Revival has never left radio.

A Man, His Mule and John Barleycorn

Clinton County, Kentucky has had four courthouses in its nearly 200-year history. The first one was built in 1835-36, soon after the county was organized. It was burned by Confederate troops during the Civil War (1864). Construction of the second courthouse began in 1870 and was finished in 1873. The third Clinton County Courthouse was built in 1895. It burned on August 2, 1980, and the current courthouse was built shortly thereafter.

According to some who remembered it, soon after the third court­house was built in 1895, local resident Marion Gibbons, who coincidentally just happened to be the great-grandfather of the focus of my last story, Belknap Byers, Jr., loved his John Barleycorn. One day he consumed a little too much and rode his mule through courthouse from one end to the other. He was promptly arrested and taken before the judge, who fined him $10. Gibbons handed the judge a $20 bill. When the judge said he didn't have change, the man told him to keep the $20, that he enjoyed the ride through the courthouse so much he would just do it again. So, he hopped on his mule and back through the courthouse he went!

The late Eddie Lovelace, who was an eloquent speaker and always in demand at public events, loved to tell this story, and did so at many of his speaking engagements.

"From "Man Rides Mule Through Courthouse" (The New Era newspaper, 1952)

Sheriff John Boles was a Radical

The Nashville Union
April 22, 1866

Dear Editors:

"State of Affairs in Overton County"

If you should find room and consider the following worth publishing, the writer hereof will be greatly obliged. The writer hereof desires to give to the public some facts transpiring in the notoriously represented county of Overton, that she has been frequently and generously represented for the last six months as being a den of returned Rebel guerrillas, and that only a small number of her citizens were loyal and worthy of any of the rights and immunities of citizens, I have no doubt but by whom these representations have been made.

Have, as a general thing, those who have served in the Federal army and returned home and living quietly within her limits, made these representations? Did Col. Garrett, the late representative from this county, so represent affairs? Did gentlemen who have been engaged in the oil business in this county represent that the county is infested with returned Rebel desperados? I would just say in answer to these questions, "not so far and heard from."

The question, then, very naturally comes up, who are making these representations? I would answer that they are men who, but few of them have ever been in the Federal army, and in all composing a small number known in this county as radicals, but as it happens holds some of the offices in the county, who obtained these offices, not from the choice of citizens but by appointment, and men who believe in furnishing our sheriff (Boles) with a guard of from five to fifteen men and paying them (cost of subsistence and all) $52.50 per month each out of the county treasury; and this too when our revenue collector last year, a discharged Federal soldier, rode through the county without a single man with him, and collected the taxes with better success than usual, and was never molested by these believed to be Rebel guerillas.

This same sheriff also refused to hold the election last March, as by law he should have done, and openly declared that he would arrest and carry to Nashville any magistrate or other person who should presume to open and hold the elections. But however, the election was open and held in all of the districts but one, by law, so far as I was informed, and he has not arrested any person yet; but he went right off to Nashville swearing he would break the elections all up, and accordingly, on last Monday, the first Monday of April, those who were elected made application to be installed into office by the County Court, when Sheriff Boles (Deputy Governor, as he styles himself) rose and produced and read to the Court, a paper writing, purportedly to be an order from Governor Brownlow, by Secretary Fletcher, to the honorable John Boles, sheriff, directing or commanding him to allow no Rebel officers to be sworn into office, or something to that amount, and concluded with a harangue to the court that if one of them voted to install a man who had been elected into office, he would most certainly arrest him and carry him to Nashville, whereupon the court unanimously (except two Magistrates who were, I suppose, afraid to vote against it, and did not vote at all) declared the March elections null and void, and authorized or empowered Sheriff Boles to appoint constables throughout the district; and this, too, when there were men demanding to be installed into office who were Union men.

The court then, upon motion, declared the certificates which had been given to authorized voters by the County Clerk, whom the governor through Sheriff Boles, had appointed some 12 months ago, all null and void; and that voters must get new ones before they could vote again. This same party, sometime since, there being a vacancy in the Legislature, occasioned by the resignation of A.E. Garrett as representative, in convention in the town of Livingston, nominated Sheriff Boles as the radical candidate for that position. John Q. A. Sproul, G.A. Overstreet and Dr. Meadows were also candidates. I suppose of their own will.

The election went off, and the result is that Sheriff Boles is badly beaten, and Mr. Overstreet, a straight out Union man, is elected, while Mr. Sproul, also a Union man, and Dr. Meadows, an ex-rebel, are also beaten far behind - Dr. Meadows being behind all. Now, it looks like this notorious Rebel gang in Overton are not so quite hostile to the government and Union men when they come up to the ballot box; those who are permitted to vote and elect a Union man and reject a Rebel, but yet they are not quite loyal enough to elect a radical. So, Sheriff Boles still presides as Sheriff, etc.

Now in conclusion, I desire to say that I have served in the Federal army; have been residing in this county for the past six months, yet I have not for once seen or heard of a rebel-returned soldier molesting any Union man. I have been through the county some and find the people all friendly and hospitable and engaged in useful pursuits of life. I have, more than once, seen on public days men, professing to be very loyal, some of them, I believe, composing the Sheriff's guard, armed and intoxicated, drive every man who had ever been considered a Rebel out of town, beating them up scandalously, and yet they did not resist this kind of abuse. I have not heard of an instance in which a man who had been a Rebel, attempted to resist the civil law.

As regards to the certificate matter, I have only to say that I suppose the county court clerk complied with the law to the best of his knowledge and ability, and if elections are to be set aside and broken up, and declared illegal, by anyone, I think that some legal cause should be shown for so doing and legal proceedings had; and further, if elections are not to be regarded, at once say there shall be none, and do away with the trouble of holding them, and say to the people that, though they have elected a Union man to the legislature and rejected an ex-rebel: "You are not radical yet enough to be allowed to vote."

But I am ever confident that the present state of affairs will not last long; that those who persist in the idea of further persecuting those lately in rebellion, will discover their error and desist, and that peace and good will yet reign.

Signed by: A Citizen

During the Civil War, John Boles served as Captain in his brother-in-law Tinker Dave Beaty's Independent Scouts. His sons Robert and George (my 3rd great-grandfather) were also members of that guerilla unit. Before the war, John was a politician, serving as state representative for Overton County from 1851 to 1853, and as state senator of Fentress, Morgan, Overton and Scott Counties from 1853 to 1857. He was the first post-Civil War Sherriff of Overton County, from 1865-1867. John was born in Blount County, TN on June 16, 1802 - the son of James Boles and Elizabeth, Jennie Franklin. Elizabeth, aka Be'toc'e," was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, the granddaughter of Tah Chee "Dutch" - "the Long Warrior" - of The Telico Bird Clan, and  Aisley of The Paint Clan.

John's wife, Matilda, was the sister of Union guerilla Tinker Dave Beaty. John died on March 18, 1869, at the age of 66. He and his wife are buried at Bolestown Cemetery near East Port Marina. The American flag flies nearby.

John Boles

Remembering John Havlicek

I stopped caring so much about NBA basketball when Magic Johnson retired from the game for the third and final time in 1996. From a personal hero standpoint, I had no one else to root for. Larry Bird had already retired and so had Issel and Gilmore.

Growing up in the late sixties and all through the seventies it was routine for my family to attend church on Sunday morning. After lunch, our attention turned to the television set where there was almost always a Celtics game on, and that's where I became a big fan of Hondo. John Havlicek. Number 17.

Havlicek died Thursday night, April 25, 2019 at the age of 79. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.

It's funny because I always thought Havlicek looked more like a lumberjack then he did a basketball player. At 6'5 he was a small forward who sometimes played the shooting guard position, but he never slowed down. He never stopped running. His relentless hustle is what attracted me to his style of play.

Havlicek played 16 seasons in the NBA, all of them with the Celtics. He was one of the central figures in the Celtics’ rise to prominence and was considered a mainstay on eight championship teams (1963-1966; 1968, 1969, 1974 and 1976). Havlicek averaged 20.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.2 steals over his career. He is the Celtics all-time leader in points scored and games played, ranks second in assists and fifth in rebounds. In addition, he made 13 All-Star teams and was an 11-time All-NBA selection before entering the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. The NBA named him to its list of the 50 greatest players to play in the league. His No. 17 is forever enshrined in the Garden rafters.

"HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL"

Havlicek was involved in one of the NBA's most iconic plays of all time on April 15, 1965, during the Eastern Conference final playoff series between the Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. The Celtics were clinging to a 110-109 lead with five seconds remaining when Bill Russell’s inbounds pass from under the 76ers’ basket hit a guide wire overhead, giving the 76ers the ball and a chance to win the series. Guarding Chet Walker in the area near the free-throw line, Havlicek began silently counting off the five allotted seconds that 76ers had to inbound the ball. At the count of four, he peeked back to see that the ball had just been tossed in his direction. Havlicek reached and tipped the pass to teammate Sam Jones, who then dribbled out the clock to secure the victory for Boston, setting off pandemonium in Boston Garden. The play was immortalized by Celtics’ radio broadcaster Johnny Most, whose call “Havlicek stole the ball!” became enshrined in every highlight reel of the Celtics’ glorious history.

The Celtics issued a statement following his passing. It read, “(Halicek's) defining traits as a player were his relentless hustle and wholehearted commitment to team over self...he was a champion in every sense."

The basketball star was described by the team in a statement as "one of the most accomplished players in Boston Celtics history, and the face of many of the franchise's signature moments."

So long Hondo, thanks for the memories!

One Autumnal Face