John Fogerty has announced that he’s done what will surely soon become known as ‘a Taylor Swift’ – he’s re-recorded his back catalogue. Or at least some of it.
He’s releasing a greatest hits album, Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, on 22 August. It consists of re-recordings of 20 of his best-known songs, including Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising and Down On The Corner. Apparently they are note-for-note re-creations of the originals, featuring the same rhythm section and the same guitar parts.
In a new interview with Rolling StoneFogerty outlined why he embarked on the project.
It seems that in 2023 he obtained a majority interest in the publishing rights of the Creedence back catalogue. His wife Julie then encouraged him into the remakes album though the veteran songwriter – who turned 80 on Wednesday – was initially sceptical.
“I didn’t want to have anything to do with that,” he says. “But then as time went on, I thought, ‘OK, I’ll stick my toe in the water and see how that is.’”
The other inspiration, he admits, was Swift, who embarked on her own re-recording project after her catalogue was sold to Scooter Braun in 2019. This tale took another twist today (30 May) when Swift confirmed that she’s now bought the masters from current owners, Shamrock Holdings.
“I understood her plight,” says Fogerty. “She’s had a wonderful career, and, of course, had saved a lot of money and was a major touring artist, so she was quite able to pay whatever amount the person that was going to sell it. I really felt for her at the time, because the guy was selling it to somebody else. That sort of thing has certainly happened to me.”
“I wanted to call it Taylor’s Version,” he reveals. “I lobbied very much to the record company”: In the end, he was convinced to go for the somewhat less amusing title, Legacy.
Asked why old Creedence fans would want to fork out for note-for-note re-recordings of tracks they already own, he answered: “That’s a great question, because I asked that myself. But there’s a couple of things. Number one, there’s probably no chance in the world I will ever have any part of the ownership of the old masters. This is kind of the Taylor Swift part. But another thing is, I think there’s a joy quite evident in the music that may not be there in the original versions.”
Another reason (though he didn’t mention it) may be the huge success of the Swift re-recording programme. The four albums she’s remade since 2019 have been worldwide best sellers, proving that fans actually will buy the same songs twice.
In a letter to fans on her websitethough, Swift has now confirmed that her original masters are finally under her ownership. “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me,” she wrote.
Addressing what this means for the two albums that were still left to be re-recorded, Swift admitted that she’s been struggling with Reputation, and has yet to re-record “even a quarter of it”. We may be waiting a while for that one, then.
Work on Taylor’s Version of her debut, though, is said to be complete – “I really love how it sounds now,” says the star – so maybe that one will see the light of day sooner rather than later. Now, though, it will be as a “celebration” rather than “from a place of sadness and longing,” says Swift.
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