California Blues (Blue Yodel #4)

Background

"California Blues (Blue Yodel #4)" is an album track on the first solo LP of John Fogerty. He released it as The Blue Ridge Rangers. The song was recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley and engineered by Skip Shimmin and Russ Gary. The album came out in April 1973. It peaked at #47 in the USA.

The song was originally a part of the "Blue Yodel" series of 13 songs Jimmie Rodgers wrote and recorded in 1927-1933.  Somewhere around the beginning of 1971 John Fogerty got himself a Sony cassette player. He got turned on to the convenience of cassettes and bought dozens of them. His stetson hat was filled with cassettes at that time. One of the first tapes was the Merle Haggard sings Jimmie Rodgers. “California Blues” on it blew Fogerty away. He’d play it every morning just to change mood in the middle of exhausting tours of Creedence Clearwater. Fogerty also used the song to check his voice. If he could sing along and yodel with it, his voice was OK. (John Fogerty promotional interview, 1973)

Live versions

John Fogerty has never played the song in live shows except a private concert with the local bar band at Troy Inn in Troy, Oregon, on November 16th, 1987.     

Critical reception

""California Blues" ---is closer in origins to "Blue Ridge Mountain Blues" than the other country material, but he gives it a near Dixieland treatment, holding it together with a wonderful bottom and some of his best singing." -Jon Landau, The Rolling Stone, July 5th, 1973

"I can't ever seem to dig this tune, but I'm not sure what's wrong with it. The horn section shows Fogerty can play even more instruments, but I can't identify them." -Matt Loewen.

"God only knows why this is the obvious highlight for me, but I'm gonna guess it has something to do with the magic of John's voice as he tells you that he's a-leavin' you Mamaaaaa... 'cause you know you don't treat me right'. Yep. The brass solo on the song sounds so damn corny, too, almost like a parody - hilarious as hell." -George Starostin.

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