HEADED FOR HOME
I have a better title, except Malamud already claimed it: The Natural. John Fogerty’s sound could never be pinned down to time or region; spring “Who’ll Stop The Rain” or “Lodi” on a panel of musicologists 30, 40 years from now and ask them to place it, and odds are there’ll be a lot of baffled head-scratching.
JOHN FOGERTY Centerfield (Warner Bros.)
Mitchell Cohen
I have a better title, except Malamud already claimed it: The Natural. John Fogerty’s sound could never be pinned down to time or region; spring “Who’ll Stop The Rain” or “Lodi” on a panel of musicologists 30, 40 years from now and ask them to place it, and odds are there’ll be a lot of baffled head-scratching. There’s some New Orleans bounce, some Memphis thump, a bit of a blue yodel in the voice, and the spare directness of blues. The bite of ’50s rock ’n’ roll, the hickory-smoked twang of Henry Fonda in The Grapes Of Wrath. All this stuff, and it still only takes three notes to identify the music’s maker.