13.01.93 Part of Bruce´s speech inducting Creedence Clearwater Revival into the Rock´n´Roll Hall of Fame
´´In 1970, suburban New Jersey was still filled with the kind of ´60´s spirit Easy Rider made us all so fond of, I´m referring to the scene where Dennis Hopper gets blown off his motorcycle by some redneck with a shotgun ! A weekend outing at the time was still filled with the drama of possibly getting your ass kicked by a total stranger who disagreed with your fashion sense. Me and my band worked on Route 35 outside of Asbury Park, at a club called the Pandemonium. And so it was five 50-minute sets a night and rarely a night without a fight. But into New Jersey came the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival and for three minutes and seven seconds of ´Proud Mary´, a very strained brotherhood would actually fill the room. It was simply a great song that everybody liked and it literally saved our asses on many occasions. Anyway, I stand here tonight still envious of that music´s power and simplicity. And they were hits, and hitsville was reality and poetry and a sense of the darkness of events and history, of an American tradition shot through with pride, fear, paranoia, and they rocked hard. Now, you can´t talk about Creedence without talking about John Fogerty. As a songwriter, only a few did as much in three minutes. He was an Old Testament, shaggy-haired prophet, a fatalist. Funny too. He was severe, he was precise, he said what he had to say and he got out of there. He was lyrically spare and beautiful. He created a world of childhood memory and of men and women with their backs to the wall. A landscape of swamps, bayous, endless rivers, gypsy women, backporches, hound dogs chasing ghosts, devils, bad moons rising, straight out of the blues tradition. So let me end by saying that, in their day, Creedence never got the respect they deserved. They played no-frills American music for the people....´´
(taken from the Q Magazine, February 1995 issue).

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi