Jewsrock.org : Words : Unfortunate SonUnfortunate Son
by Kara Baskin
Tucker Ranson/ Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but not when it comes to rock and roll. (Case in point: "Ice Ice Baby.") But few vocalists would dare attempt John Fogerty’s signature growl.
Which was precisely Fogerty’s problem when he was sued for sounding too much like ... himself.
Saul Zaentz, a businessman whose credits include movie producer, chicken-coop farmer, and chairman of Fantasy Records, accused the Creedence Clearwater Revival singer of pulling off the ultimate rock and roll hat trick: defamation of character, copyright infringement, and self-plagiarism. Zaentz charged that Fogerty’s 1985 solo hit "The Old Man Down the Road" sounded strangely similar—illegally similar—to a previous CCR hit, "Run Through the Jungle." It was a song to which Zaentz, not Fogerty, held the rights.
Bad blood between the singer and the impresario had simmered since the sixties. Fantasy was then a small Berkeley, California, operation specializing in blues and jazz; John Fogerty toiled in the company mailroom as a shipping clerk. Zaentz, a Russian-Polish Jew from California by way of Passaic, managed jazz acts like Duke Ellington and had recently acquired the Fantasy mantle.
Though the label specialized in blues and jazz, savvy Zaentz knew a good thing when he heard it. He signed CCR—who thankfully changed their name from the Golliwogs—and the group became famous for a new brand of rock known as "swamp pop." A little "Bad Moon Risin’," some "Fortunate Son," and the El Cerrito garage band was on the map. Zaentz was also sitting pretty, thanks in large part to Fogerty’s distinctive rasp.
But Zaentz allegedly failed to pay the band their rightful songwriting dues. Fogerty and his bandmates sued him for nonpayment of royalties; Zaentz countered that the musicians had signed away most of their rights to him, and contractual battles hemorrhaged in litigation for years.
(Taustaselvitykseksi esiteltäköön lyhyesti eräs populaarimusiikkibusineksen röyhkeimmistä huijauksista! The Castle Bank of Nassau Story. Muistakaa lukiessanne, että Zaentz (toisin kuin CCR) ehti jostain kumman syystä tai "ennakkoaavistuksen" johdosta vetää omat miljoonansa pois pankista ennen sen katoamista...Tätä asiaa ei tekstissä erikseen mainita.)
Bitter and excluded from his rightful tax bracket, the front man refused to play any CCR hits for a decade. But he slammed back in 1985 with Centerfield, which was released on the Warner Brothers label.
The album contained the FM-friendly title track and another hit, "Rock and Roll Girls." It also took a swipe at Zaentz: "Zanz Kant Danz" (sounds mysteriously like Zaentz, doesn’t it?). The song about a pet pig trained to steal was widely whispered to be a dig at the businessman: "Zanz Kant Danz/But he’ll steal your money/Watch him or he’ll rob you blind."
Though Fogerty insisted it was nothing more than an innocent tune about a boy and his pet pig named Zanz, the pig was renamed Vanz and the song changed to "Vanz Kant Danz" in later pressings.
Centerfield also featured a fiery "Mister Greed," ("You’re a devil of consumption! I hope you choke, Mister Greed!"), which Fogerty snarled with the same ire he displayed on "Fortunate Son" years earlier. (The older song railed against the draft, the new one decried corporate greed: The eighties had arrived.)
Perhaps feeling insecure about his dancing skills, Zaentz also got hung up on "The Old Man Down the Road," the album’s smash hit. The chord progression was identical to the 1970 CCR hit "Run Through the Jungle," he decreed. Fogerty had plagiarized a song that he—not the erstwhile CCR singer—rightfully owned.
And so Behind the Music met Court TV. Fogerty gamely spent two days on the witness stand during the two-week U.S. District Court trial, guitar in hand, playing many of his compositions to demonstrate his songwriting style, contending that any similarities between the songs were simply part of his distinctive "swamp rock" style. He strummed his guitar during breaks and regaled star-struck jurors with rock folklore.
Fantasy fired back with testimony by musicologists equipped with charts, a piano, and a computer sound system that superimposed one pattern of notes on another. A rival musicologist for Warner Bros. served as DJ, spinning a series of Creedence records ("Green River," "Keep on Chooglin’," "Tombstone Shadow," and "Bootleg") while jurors nodded in time to the beat.
In the end, Fogerty’s star power was no match for Zaentz’s musicologists: Jurors took only three hours to vote in favor of Fogerty 5-1. But, although he emerged victorious from Fogerty v. Fantasy Records, the win was bittersweet.
The musician later insisted that it cost him more than $400,000 to defend himself against the plagiarism allegations—more, in fact, than he would have earned from the song. "He sues me for breathing," Fogerty was quoted as saying of Zaentz at the time.
Unbowed, Zaentz went on to greater success, earning an Oscar for producing The English Patient. (It was not his first: he also produced the Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus.)
Still on the pop culture pulse as an octogenarian, one of Zaentz’s latest endeavors was securing rights to The Lord of the Rings, though he has since sued New Line Cinema for $20 million in Rings royalties. The Fantasy label was recently sold to Concord Records, Inc.
And John Fogerty has gone on to make more music. His latest album (2004/RR), Déjà Vu All Over Again, actually sounds nothing like anything he’s recorded before.
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Kara Baskin is an assistant editor of The New Republic and also a managing editor of Jewsrock.org. As a college freshman, she drove her roommate to the brink of insanity by listening exclusively to Steely Dan’s Gaucho. She also has Tiny Tim’s autograph.
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