Rock Title Top Ten: Rock and Roll Girls (#1)

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The end of the month means the end of the countdown. We’ve rocked it this month (well, except for that bluegrass song and the Alan Jackson tune ), and it’s time to close it out. Here, to no one’s real surprise, is the song topping the list. #1: Rock and Roll Girls - John Fogerty Let’s start with Saul Zaentz. You’ve never heard of him (unless you have the original pressing of this album, in which case he’s the subject of the last song on the album). He just so happened to have had THREE Oscars sitting on his mantle: as producer of The English Patient, Amadeus, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He also owned Fantasy Records, which was the label Creedence Clearwater Revival was on in the 60s. To say he robbed CCR blind is an understatement. WORSE, he controlled the copyrights of CCR songs, meaning that John Fogerty couldn’t sing HIS OWN SONGS without the money going to Zaentz. In 1985 Fogerty made one heck of a great comeback with the album Centerfield. He had a little dig at Zaentz at the end of the album, for which he promptly got sued by Saul for defamation. And, just to show how accurate Fogerty’s description of Zaentz was, Zaentz ALSO sued Fogerty for plagiarizing his own song, claiming “The Old Man Down the Road” (the lead single from Centerfield) was stolen from CCR’s “Run Through the Jungle,” which, as mentioned, Zaentz owned the royalty rights to. Sheesh, couldn’t he have just been happy with that Oscar that Amadeus won? Fogerty won the plagiarism suit, BTW. And we won with this magnificent comeback album. Fogerty played all the instruments on it, so that’s him on the saxophone. The happy ending (sort of): after years of not doing CCR songs, Fogerty, at a concert for veterans in 1987, told the vets (mostly Vietnam era) to take all the anger, frustration, and bitterness over the way they’d been “welcomed” home, write it in a letter, mail it to him, and “drop all that sh*t you’ve been carrying in the (mail)box.” He said that between “Down on the Corner” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain.” I’m glad he found his music again. CCR was the soundtrack of the late 60s, and his comeback music was the soundtrack of the mid-80s. Thanks for reading. Rock and Roll Girls Written by John C. Fogerty Recorded by John Fogerty From Centerfield, 1985 Hey let’s go all over the world: