Rewind: 1970 - CCR Unleash Their Very Best

Cosmo's Factory - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Fantasy (US)

Liberty (UK)

Released 25th July 1970

Produced by John Fogerty

US Chart #1

UK Chart #1

The Album was also #1in Australia, Canada, France and Norway.

Personnel

John Fogerty – lead guitar, lead vocals, piano, saxophone, harmonica, producer, arranger
Tom Fogerty – rhythm guitar
Stu Cook – bass
Doug Clifford – drums

Side One

 1. "Ramble Tamble"
2. "Before You Accuse Me" (Ellas McDaniel)
3. "Travelin' Band"
4. "Ooby Dooby" (Wade Moore, Dick Penner)
5. "Lookin' Out My Back Door"
6. "Run Through the Jungle"
Side Two        
1. "Up Around the Bend"
2. "My Baby Left Me" (Arthur Crudup)
3. "Who'll Stop the Rain‡"
4. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong)
5. "Long as I Can See the Light"

This was CCR's fourth Top Ten Album and their second Number One (Green River from 1969 had made it to the top in the US). It is by far the best album the band had ever made and it's popularity is such that in 1990 it had received the honour of going Four Times Platinum by selling Four Million copies.

The title of the album is taken from the warehouse in Berkley where the band were rehearsing called "The Factory" by Drummer Doug Clifford because it was the place everyday John Fogerty made the band practise.

Three Double A-Sided Singles were taken from the album (though two of them were released prior to the album in January and April of 1970). They had to be Double A-Sides because when you see the songs there is no way any of them could ever be a B-Side!

Travelin' Band / Who'll Stop the Rain

(January 1970 US Chart #2, UK Chart #8)

Up Around the Bend / Run Through the Jungle

(April 1970 US Chart #4, UK Chart #3)

Lookin' Out My Back Door / Long As I Can See the Light

(July 1970 US Chart #2 UK Chart #2)

I was only a 7 year old boy when this was released and have no memories to report of it. I can recall a few years later when I had begun to start liking  music that I remember that DJ's on the radio were still fond of playing the odd Creedence Clearwater Revival track so songs like Bad Moon Rising, Up Around the Bend, Long As I Can See the Light and Travelin' Band were not alien to me. I do remember the moment though that I first began to investigate them further and that was in the 1980's after Hanoi Rocks had covered Up Around the Bend for their Two Steps From The Move album in 1984. I can remember buying a copy of Cosmos Factory at the Record and Tape Exchange in Notting Hill for a couple of pounds mainly because Up Around the Bend was on it but also because Long As I Can See the Light was also on it and I had come to really love that song after hearing it on an old cassette. After that I also purchased a bunch of their other albums and to this day they are still played and enjoyed. 

CCR are up there with the finest of artists in my book. They are one of the bands that if there was such a thing as time machine I'd want to program it to a day and a place where CCR were performing just so I could see them for myself in all their gloriously rockin' splendour!

It was voted in 2003 at #265 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It's still an album that brings me a lot of joy when I play it