Tom Fogerty

Thomas Richard Fogerty (November 9, 1941 – September 6, 1990) was an American musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Fogerty was born in Berkeley, California, one of five sons in a family of Irish descent. He grew up in nearby El Cerrito and attended Saint Mary's College High School in Berkeley, where he played on the football team. He also began singing rock and roll music with the Playboys, who played high school dances, his signature song being Bobby Freeman's "Do You Want to Dance." This attracted the attention of Spider Webb and the Insects, a top local group, who asked him to join. In 1959, the group signed a recording contract with Del-Fi Records shortly after Fogerty graduated from high school, but the group dissolved later that year, their single "Lyda Jane" never seeing release.

After the breakup of Spider Webb and the Insects, Tom began performing as a solo artist. Tom's younger brother John had his own band, the Blue Velvets, who began backing Tom, and Tom later joined the band. Tommy Fogerty & the Blue Velvets recorded three singles, with Tom on lead vocals, for Orchestra Records in 1961 and 1962. During this era, Tom sometimes used the pseudonym "Rann Wild" for songwriting credits while John used "Toby Green". By 1964, the group had signed with Fantasy Records, who renamed the band the Golliwogs, with Tom and John sharing lead vocal duties. In 1967, John quit his job with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, adding his savings to the collective pool of funds used to keep the band afloat. That same year, the band was redubbed Creedence Clearwater Revival, with John as the lead singer and sole songwriter, prompting Tom to begin improving his rudimentary guitar skills.

Although Tom's Golliwogs-era collaboration with John, "Walk on the Water", appeared on CCR's debut album, the subsequent lack of vocal and songwriting opportunities, compounded by longstanding animosity toward his brother, led Tom to leave the band in early 1971 after the completion of Pendulum. Though the band's press release characterized the split as amicable, Tom was frustrated by his brother's monopolization of the group's creativity and decision-making, lamenting that he simply became "just the guy who stood there and played rhythm guitar. So after we were into our sixth platinum album, I thought maybe I could do a little singing. But John was not going to change things, so I split."

After leaving CCR, Fogerty began a solo career. His debut release, the April 1971 single "Goodbye Media Man" did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, though it reached No. 3 on the Bubbling Under chart and No. 93 on the Cash Box singles chart. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice disliked the song, calling it "unextraordinary musically, simplistic lyrically, and also Tom doesn't sing too good". His May 1972 debut album, Tom Fogerty, reached No. 180 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.