You can now follow the latest news for free through the Telegram application
Click here to subscribe
New York: American musician John Fogerty announced Thursday that he had managed, following a battle that lasted half a century, to recover the rights to the songs he wrote for his prominent band in the seventies of the last century, “Creedence Clearwater Revival”.
While many fellow rock and folk musicians, such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan or Neil Young, have recently appeared to sell the rights to their works for hundreds of millions of dollars, Fogerty, 77, has taken the opposite direction.
“As of January, I am the owner of my own songs once more. I thought this would never happen. I can’t wait to tour and celebrate this year!”, describing it as a “resurrection.”
For nearly 50 years, Fogerty sought to regain control of his business through the judiciary, the most famous of which are “Broad Mary”, “Bad Moon Rising” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”, following losing its rights due to what he described as a bad contract with a record company.
During the sixties, Fogerty and his band “Credence Clearwater Revival” signed a contract with “Fantasy Records” for its owner, Sol Zantz, who was the most prominent in the field of music and film production in that era.
Soon, the rights to the famous song once morest the Vietnam War, “Fortunate Son,” became the subject of complaints, lawsuits, and press campaigns led by John Fogerty.
When his band’s contract broke up in the early seventies, his dispute with Fantasy Records intensified in an attempt to break the contract. But to no avail.
The result was Fogerty’s long absence, during which he refused to sing even his former band’s songs.
In 2004, the music production company “Concord” acquired “Fantasy Records”, but John Fogerty did not recover his rights.
More recently, Fogerty made an undisclosed financial offer, which Concord accepted.
And Billboard magazine, which was the first to publish the news of the agreement Thursday, quoting Fogerty, stated that Concord will retain the rights to Credence, which it originally owned, while the musician will regain all his rights as an author.
These rights allow him to obtain profits in exchange for broadcasting his songs on radio or via streaming platforms, or from album sales or in exchange for their use in advertisements or films, and the owners of the recording rights can decide to re-release in the future.