John Fogerty

When he sings the line, it sounds as if the weather finally has broken on a career once tethered to storm clouds.

"It's alright, I learned my lesson well," John Fogerty purrs, his voice so jovial and warm, it's as if it's solar powered. "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."

"If memories were all I sang," he later adds, "I'd rather drive a truck."

The tune is a Ricky Nelson number about being booed off stage when the singer began to explore a country-western swing rather than the lickity-split rock 'n' roll that initially made him famous.

It's a transition that Fogerty knows well, though his trip down that rural dirt road has only ever been intended as a quick detour.

Thirty six years ago, Fogerty released his first solo album under the handle of the Blue Ridge Rangers. It was an overlooked album of country standards that was miles removed from the badass, clenched-fist boogie that Fogerty was best known for at the time in his main outfit, the inimitable Creedence Clearwater Revival.

That band is one of America's all-time greatest, with an unprecedented start to their brief career, having released six essential albums in but three years beginning with their self-titled 1968 debut, where flame-spittin' guitars and raw-voiced catcalls congealed into a bare-knuckle, blues-based swing that hit hard enough to loosen teeth.

Fogerty sang like an exorcised demon, his voice roaring with the loud rumble of a mufflerless hot rod.

It was some potent stuff. Still is.

But disputes over royalties cast an ugly pall over the band, with Fogerty so openly bitter about the situation that it imperiled his entire career, causing him to take long hiatuses from music and refuse to play any CCR material for years upon his return.

And so it's a real treat, these days, to hear him sound so unabashedly joyful on his latest album, a revisiting of his solo roots, "The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again."

A wistful, sweet-voiced, toothy-grin-of-a-record, the album sees Fogerty largely toning down his hair-raising howl on banjo-and-fiddle-flecked readings of John Denver, Everly Brothers and Buck Owens classics, enlisting a little help from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley and others.

For Fogerty, it's a revisiting of the past to reaffirm the happiness of the present.

"The project or concept has never been far from my mind. I would think about it every month or so, maybe more often, over all these years," Fogerty says. "I'd just kind of think to myself, 'Gee, it'd be nice to do that again.' Sometimes I even went to the trouble of making a short list of songs -- and then I'd lose the list, of course. This was the days before computers.

"But last summer, my wife just suddenly said, 'You know that Blue Ridge Rangers record you did? Why don't you do another one of those?' " he continues. "And that really tickled me. I wasn't even aware that she thought much about that album. I was just happy that she thought that would be something cool that I could do now. So I kind of jumped in with both feet."

Still, his decision to do so wasn't necessarily an obvious one, as Fogerty admits that for years he was ambivalent about the Blue Ridge Rangers' debut.

"I often have remembered the first Blue Ridge Rangers album in a couple of weird ways," he says. "Number one, I didn't think anybody noticed, and also, I felt that it wasn't very good. Now that the subject is open again, I've had a lot of people talk very fondly to me about the first one, and I kind of realized that I just didn't really feel very good then. I wasn't doing too well, personally, whereas with the new album, I'm just loving life. I think the music really reflects that."

That it does, as the album is an unabashed shot of sunshine so loose and carefree, it's as if the man has never seen an overcast day.

"Who'll stop the rain?" Fogerty once famously asked in song, and decades later, he finally can put the umbrella away.

"Life is good," Fogerty says, his music industry woes long behind him. "I don't walk around with that baggage on my shoulder, which I confess, was there for a long time. When you get ripped off, you feel like something was unfair. In a sense, you might be whining a little bit. I don't have any of that crap going on with me anymore. I'm just happy and very grateful that I get to make music, and that the music is now pure and joyful and energized from all the right motives. I really do love playing music."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.