Fogerty is an icon who made records the old fashioned way: he earned the respect for the direct, no frills homage to rootsy rock and roll. In fact, he might rightly be credited with having inspired the roots renaissance.
This collection is so much more than just a culling of hits that those of us from a certain age, with thinning hair and expanding waistlines, mightremember. These songs still reverberate with an urgency and a directness that grunge, punk, and whatever else only vaguely understood. In the course of 3 minutes, Fogerty could capture everything from baseball's field of dreams to the political hypocrisy that sons of the wealthy still exploit. Anyone smell a US president here? Anyway, for someone from Bakersfield, California, Fogerty's heart, and certainly his soul, dwelled poetically and rhythmically in the Delta. Voodoo, Northern Mississippi blues and the earnestness of folks who called them as they saw them ring out in his lyrics. The music was always immediately recognizable, and instantlt infectious. Fogerty was brilliant all through his career.
There are some terrific live performances here that justify the CD all by themselves, and actually leave you wanting more. When is the last time you could say that about a Greatest Hits type of package? For my money, I'd have loved to see more from PENDULUM, but to Fogerty's credit, he has in fact picked the very best of what he stood for. Hopefully sales of this disc will encourage him to record again. He is an American classic, and this is an extraordinary resume.