Album Review: John Fogerty - Wrote A Song For Everyone

Anytime is a good time for Creedence and John Fogerty ought to celebrate his outstanding catalogue of work in any way he sees fit. But we just don't need Wrote A Song For Everyone. Sure, Foo Fighters playing Fortunate Son sounds pretty cool, but it's the kind of performance best left for charity concerts or TV specials. Keith Urban sounds great on Almost Saturday Night, but about one per cent as great as Fogerty did in 1975 and while having the legendary Bob Seger and Fogerty together on Who'll Stop The Rain, it's a bit late in their careers for it to be doing either artist any great favours. 

New track Mystic Highway is a friendly white bread country-gospel romp; it's one of Fogerty's best performances on the album, but lacks the grit of the early days, while Zac Brown's vocal on Bad Moon Rising is pretty arresting and his band's loose, slacker take on the arrangement brings the best parts of Jimmy Buffett and CCR together. The highlight is easy to pick, though; My Morning Jacket make Long As I Can See The Light stunning as Jim James' falsetto sounds effortlessly cool. It's also one of the songs where Fogerty seems comfortable to show his age, his vocal is weathered and imperfect, which, in turn, means he sounds at his most powerful.

It can be difficult to separate your feelings for these songs with the performances on this disc; if you've had the right number of beers anyone sounds great doing Creedence songs. But skip this record and buy another copy of Green River instead.