"Things got bad, and things got worse..."

"... I guess you know the tune, Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again."
A friend lent me a Creedence Clearwater Revival "greatest hits" CD yesterday. I loaded it onto my iPod as soon as I got home.
Way before somebody thought to throw "alternative" onto "country" to form "alt.country," CCR were putting the "roots" back into "roots rock."
I know, because Creedence Clearwater Revival were one of the few rock bands to gain favor from my late, jazz-addicted father. I had heard "Lodi" and "Down on the Corner" so young in life, it almost feels as if the songs had been stripped into my genetic coding.
Listening to CCR again, after many years, I am struck by how southern they sound. "Born on the Bayou?" I can believe it. They sometimes sound like they were born IN the bayou.
Which brings up the wildly ironic, true geographic birthplace of the band -- El Cerrito, Calif.
I have been to El Cerrito and I can tell you: The only thing "south" about the place is that it is south of San Pablo. Heck, it's not even in the South Bay! El Cerrito is an East Bay Area town located north of Berkeley.
Later, some of the band members relocated to Marin County.
That northern enclave of BMWs is even FARTHER REMOVED from the gator-baitin'
ideal found in CCR's songs.
Yet, John Fogerty and co. somehow tapped into the essence of Americana despite their lack of redneck cred. Like The Band (a collection of Canadians who at least had Arkansas native Levon Helm in their ranks), CCR proved that "good ol' American music" is as much a state of mind as a state of place.
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