I have vivid memories of staring at the cut stone walls of the 33 as my mom shuffled us from our house in the suburbs to my grandparent's house on the west side of buffalo. It was the mid '70s and we buzzed down the highway in my mom's VW bug (I can still smell the vinyl interior and the chirp of the motor behind us). We made that drive often and the tinny sound of AM radio was always present. It seems like Creedance was always on the radio during that decade. This memory is triggered every time I hear "down on the corner " by #creedanceclearwaterrevival . Later in life I bought CCR's greatest hits and always had an affinity for those swampy pop hits. It was many years before I considered grabbing their proper full-length albums. This was the first CD I grabbed because it not only contained "...on the corner" but also "fortunate song" (a blue collar family's theme song) and "the midnight special" (forever haunts me from it's inclusion in "American werewolf in London" which terrified me as a kid). As I kind of expected I liked all the non-single tracks a whole bunch and it was like re-discovering the band. It's been the same for their entire discography, they have a sound and a feel unique to them and it bleeds into all of their songs.
It's not often I'm a passenger on the 33 anymore and I can't stare at the textured stone walls that it has carved towards the city. These days I'm shuffling my children from the lower west side of Buffalo to the suburban trappings that it's well worn pavement leads to. Think I'll play this album today as we make the drive to karate class as a torch passing of back seat commutes.
Edit: "bad moon rising" was in "American werewolf in London". "The midnight special" was in the twilight zone movie with Dan Akroyd.
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