As the driving force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival, he wrote some of the 60s most enduring songs. But a poor record deal followed by years in the wilderness drove him to the brink of breakdown. Now 80, he looks back
T
here were once two brothers from an Irish background, living in the outer suburbs of a hip city. They got in a band and one of them turned out to be a genius songwriter and arranger. For a few years everything they touched turned to gold. Then they fell out, bitterly, each blaming the other for everything that had gone wrong.
It’s the story of not just the Gallagher brothers, but also John and Tom Fogerty. Like Noel, John was the brilliant songwriter, arranger, lead guitarist and producer – but he was also like Liam, the frontman with one of the great rock’n’roll voices. Whereas Tom Fogerty, who had been the original lead singer of the group that eventually became Creedence Clearwater Revival, had nothing without his brother’s genius.
The first strains came when Tom began to resent his younger brother’s leadership, and the demands he made on the rest of the band. It widened when Tom was the first to quit, in 1971. It became a chasm after Creedence completely split. Fantasy, the tiny jazz label that had been the only one to offer the young band a deal – a staggeringly onerous deal, demanding 180 songs over five years on a meagre royalty – freed the other three from their commitments, but refused to let John go, and kept ownership of his songs.
