Gary James' Interview With Stu Cook Of
Creedence Clearwater Revival
He was the original bass player for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Then, along with original drummer Doug Clifford, he formed Creedence Clearwater Revisited. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993. We are talking of course about Mr. Stu Cook.
Q - Stu, the last time I saw you in concert was back in July, 1971 at the Onondaga County War Memorial with Bo Diddley opening the show. What do you remember about that tour?
A - Absolutely nothing!
Q - Okay.
A - (laughs) You know we toured with a lot of guys back then. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Freddy King, Tony Joe White, Booker T. And The MGs. But you know, that was last century.
Q - I thought Bo Diddley might've been on a sixty or ninety day tour with Creedence. but it sounds like you guys rotated the acts.
A - Well, you know we only played for three and a half years. We played with Canned Heat, Lee Michaels, Carlos Santana. We played with all kinds of people.
Q - What year did Creedence Clearwater Revival call it a day?
A - 1972.
Q - When I interviewed Kenny Aronoff awhile back, I mentioned to him that he really hits those drums hard in a song like "Fortunate Son". I asked if that's just his style of playing or did John Fogerty request that. He said John wants that. He always wanted Creedence to be this hard-driving group. Did John ever mention to you that he wanted the songs to have a Hard Rock beat to them? The songs sound sped up to me.
A - No. (laughs) You know what I think? I think they're sped up so he can sing. It's a lot easier to race through it. You don't have to have any breath. You don't even have to sing the words. You just kind of talk 'em. That's what I think. Didn't they (the songs) rock hard enough on the records?
Q - I always thought the band had their own sound.
A - We had a groove.
Q - Right.
A - That's exactly what Cosmo (Doug Clifford) and I have tried to bring back to the music. We felt that the music was totally being dis-respected by the way John was performing it. John didn't start playing these songs until two years after we formed Revisited. The most common complaint, and I can send you hundreds of reviews, is that John races through the material. And I know why. It's because you don't have to sing when you play 'em fast, okay?
Q - You were not always a bass player. You were a guitar player.
A - Well, I started out as a trumpet player. I was a pianist. Excuse me. I was a piano player. (laughs) I was a Rhythm 'n Blues, Boogie Woogie sort of piano player. I took piano lessons and I could play Classical music, but not very well, not very deep. I didn't have a repertoire. Then came Elvis, right? Then later The Beatles and guitars. (laughs) Nobody wanted to play a trumpet.
Q - Although Herb Alpert didn't do too badly with it.
A - No, he didn't. There's a lot of famous trumpet players. Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, but those are band leaders, right? Those are not guys just playing in a horn section, right? But there were too many guitar players in the band. I enjoy it actually. I really like playing the bass, fortunately for me.
Q - Do you get to sing in Creedence Revisited?
A - I sing the harmonies that I would've sung on the records. Doug and I and Tom (Fogerty) only sang backgrounds I think on the tracks "Who'll Stop The Rain" and "The Night Time Is The Right Time". John felt that he could do a better job on his own. But in this band we don't have a John. We have a Stu and a Steve who sing the harmonies.
Q - You guys were at Woodstock '69, but we never see you in the movie. Whose decision was that not to include the band in the movie?
A - John Fogerty.
Q - Did anyone say to John, "Let's take a vote on this. Two thirds wins."?
A - We tried to do everything by unanimous decision, but sometimes... We didn't often vote on things. We tried to get behind whatever the best idea was. But this one was about an idea and we told him so and he said, "We don't need Woodstock. We're already number one." "Green River" was the number one album at the time, but you how number ones go, right? You're number one for how long?
Q - For however long the public is buying your music.
A - Then someone else is number one. As it turns out, it was a huge mistake not being in that film. Every single artist that was in that film got a huge career pop, you know, a big boost. Some bands actually got discovered. Sha Na Na, Santana.
Q - Alvin Lee.
A - Yeah. Ten Years After. Exactly. Good one. John told us we didn't play well enough to be in the movie. Well, I listened to the music. There has to be half a dozen tracks that kill. You got three tracks on the bonus disc I guess of the 25th Anniversary Director's Cut. John boycotted the film, said he would sue Warner Brothers. I went around his back and convinced Atlantic Records that we had the right to vote three to one to put us on the soundtrack album. (laughs) So, we are on the soundtrack album, five tracks, but we're in the 25th Anniversary Box Set, three videos including "Keep On Chooglin'", fifteen minutes or ten minutes. "I Put A Spell On You", "Keep On Chooglin'" and I forget which one is on the bonus disc. Not being in the movie was a huge mistake. It wasn't us. All we needed was one song, right? Did we play one song good enough to play in the movie? Of course we did. My research has show we played many songs good enough to be in that movie, but John just had something up is ass about it. There you have it.
Q - Did you go on in the night time or the day time?
A - We were supposed to go on at ten o'clock at night. We were the headliner. Saturday night. The weather really fouled things up. There was a lot of technical issues with the production, the danger of water and high power. So the lights were out, P.A. went out. They just weren't prepared. The recording equipment took a beating. So, we went on about one in the morning after a long, kind of meandering Grateful Dead set.
Q - Janis Joplin liked Creedence, didn't she?
A - Yeah. You know why? Because we had the same musical roots.
Q - Did you guys ever cross paths with Hendrix and Morrison?
A - Morrison, yes. Hendrix, no.
Q - What'd you think of Jim Morrison?
A - Well, by the time we hooked up with Jimbo he was pretty much on his last legs. The story is we were playing the Miami Sports Arena or some venue down there and we were staying at the Fountainbleau Hotel. We always get the Frank Sinatra suite, which was like two floors. It was a whole living space on one floor. You took the elevator up another floor, went up the spiral staircase and there were the bedrooms. In the living floor there's a whole kitchen, a big open space, a Grand piano. Then there was like a library room, wood walls with a beautiful billiards table. After we played our concert we're back at our suite having a bottle of wine and just shooting the shit. There's a knock at the door and we open it up and there's Jim, "Babes" his bodyguard, and his female flavor of the day.
Q - Not Pamela Courson?
A - I have no idea who it was, it was Jim's girlfriend or friend, and that was cool. We invited him in to play pool and he was wasted hard core. The last thing I remember is Morrison passed out on top of the pool table and the rest of us just went to bed and we left him there when we checked out.
Q - Was he drinking when he entered your room?
A - I have no idea Your Honor.
Q - Did you ever see a Creedence Tribute group? There's quite a few of them out there.
A - I can't say that I have. Why would I want to do that?
Q - Curiosity maybe. Would you ever see one?
A - I would not avoid one. That's never been my intention. I've heard a lot of bands in a lot of bars play Creedence.
Q - I'm talking about a band that just plays Creedence.
A - You mean like Revisited?
Q - No, because you guys are the original members. I'm talking about guys who try to look like the band as well as playing the music.
A - Oh, I can see what you're saying. There are some guys who tell the bass player he has to wear glasses and grow a mustache and wear corduroy pants with material sewn around the bottom. Some guys have to wear a page boy haircut and the drummer has to have a beard and long hair. I don't know what tribute bands do. To me, only the music is important. We've never been involved with a full-fledged, licensed band.
Q - They are out there.
A - Well, they're unlicensed. I don't know what's out there. Anybody can play the music. They just have to be careful about what they call themselves, but the music is free to everybody to play and enjoy.
Q - They always seem to name themselves after one of your songs.
A - Well, that's good. When John sued us back in '96 we named ourselves after "Cosmo's Factory". Stu Cook and Doug Clifford Present Cosmo's Factory. The Music Of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Does it fit on the ticket? If the print was small enough!
Q - I always liked the album covers Creedence had. Did you guys have a say in that?
A - Yeah, we did.
Q - They were always interesting.
A - Well, thank you. I mean, we had input. Fantasy Records had nothing going on at all. We would have them in finished art and they would go and make the released album covers.
Q - Is there a chance the world will ever see Creedence Clearwater's full performances at Woodstock '69?
A - Yeah. Actually, there is a chance. In case you didn't know, this is Creedence's 50th Anniversary. I believe two significant DVD releases are in the works. One for sure is Royal Albert Hall with the quartet. We played there twice. Once as a quartet, once as a trio. Once the business is settled I believe there will be a complete DVD release of Creedence's performance at Woodstock.
Official Website: Creedence-Revisited.com
© Gary James. All rights reserved.
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