Cosmo's Factory

John Fogerty - Lead Guitar and Vocals
Tom Fogerty - Rhythm Guitar
Stu Cook - Bass
Doug Clifford - Drums

SONG	RATING

Ramble Tamble	6.7
Before You Accuse Me (McDaniels)	7.0
Travelin' Band	10.0
Ooby Dooby (Moore/Penner)	6.8
Lookin' Out My Back Door	10.0
Run Through The Jungle	8.5
Up Around The Bend	10.0
My Baby Left Me (Crudup)	7.0
Who'll Stop The Rain	9.2
I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Strong/Whitfield)	9.4
Long As I Can See The Light	7.4
Average	8.36

Yes, no question, Creedence Clearwater Revival was a singles band and Cosmo's Factory proves it, with six singles turned out from this album alone. A very solid release from a band that had a sound that was closer to southern rock, than what was coming out of San Francisco, where they were from.

It's hard to pick the best song on this album, as the top three, "Travelin' Band", "Lookin' Out My Back Door" and "Up Around The Bend" are all equally great, but guess I'll go with "Up Around The Bend" for the top pick, it's just a bit better than the other two, with the drug inspired song "Lookin' Out My Back Door" a close second. "Travelin' Band" was what CCR was all about, as they were playing many dates around the time of this release. Also, a great trivia question comes from this song - "What could a band not do, which is mentioned in this song as being done, when it was released?" The answer is found in its opening line: "Seven-thirty-seven comin' out of the sky, won't you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride, I wanna move, playin' in a travelin' band, well, I'm flyin' 'cross the land, tryin' to get a hand, playin' in a travelin' band". The answer: No band could fly on a 737 when this song first came out, as the first 737s were not yet flying commercially when the song was released, and would not be for about another two months.

John Fogerty was of course the main man in CCR and you can clearly see that on this album, as he does all the singing, lead guitar work, and he wrote most of the songs. The few covers found here are all nicely done. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", is the best one, clocking in at eleven minutes, and the band plays this tune very nicely, most long songs I tend to grow tried of, but not this one. Same thing about the entire album, it has a lot of hits and is a turn-on whenever I give it a spin, even after all of these years!

To listen to some soundclips from COSMO'S FACTORY or to purchase it, click on: Cosmo's Factory