Cotton Fields

Background

"Cotton Fields" is an album track on Willy and the Poor Boys, the fourth long-player of Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Together with "The Midnight Special" it comprises a folk blues section on the compilation.

The piece was written by blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who released the first recording of the song in 1940. As a kid, John Fogerty attended Berkeley Folk Festival where Pete Seeger exposed a film of Lead Belly performing "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special." He also liked Pete Seeger's version of the number.  "Cotton Fields" was one of the tunes John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford played years before starting writing original material (Eric Alper, Interview with John Fogerty, That Eric Alper, January 19th, 2015). 

Recording session

After rehearsing "Cotton Fields" for four weeks, the band recorded the song in three or four takes. Afterwards when Fogerty put the vocals on, he recognized the drumbeats were all late. He and Russ Gary edited a bit out of each backbeat so that the beats will hit a little bit sooner. To make sure the guitars sound right after that, he added two tracks of acoustic strumming to try to smooth the edits.

John Fogerty sings the lead vocal and all the background vocals on "Cotton Fields". He also plays the acoustic guitars, maybe a tambourine too (John Fogerty, Fortunate Son, 2015). 

Collector's notes

"Cotton Fields" (backed with "It Came Out of the Sky") was released as a single in Japan on February 5, 1970.  

Another single, "Cotton Fields" backed with "Lodi" (Fantasy 920), was launched in the USA in November 1981 (Peter Koers, Green River, 1999). 

Live versions

Creedence Clearwater never played "Cotton Fields" on stage. The first documented performance of the song by John Fogerty took place at the semi-public local dance in Troy, Oregon, on November 16th, 1987. One month later, he delivered the song in the Buddy Holly Tribute concert broadcast by the PBS in the USA and released on DVD in Europe in the 2000's.  

On July 27th, 1997, the audience of the John Fogerty concert in Oslo, Norway, started singing "Cotton Fields" spontaneously. Fogerty then couldn't help but start accompanying the chant on guitar. Later in fall that year, he also delivered "Cotton Fields" in concerts in Memphis Tennesssee, Charlotte North Carolina, and Turku Finland. In the Premonition Tour next year, he played the Lead Belly original in each concert  - basically in the same way as in Oslo a year earlier.  

"Cotton Fields" made a return to the set list in 2004 and stayed there for years though in 2008-2009 the playing frequency started gradually decrease. In 2012, Fogerty only performed it in Vinstra, Norway, on the US Independence Day. In the summer 2014 tour in Europe and the US, he only played it in Spain and Italy.

Fogerty also performed the song in his first Austin City Limits concert recorded on August 10th, 2004, and broadcast in the USA a couple of months later. In June 2007, Mr. Flannel Shirt showed up at Glastonbury Festival in the fields of Somerset in the UK. The show with "Cotton Fields" in the set list was televised nationally by BBC4. 

Extranordinary live versions include the acoustic rendition Fogerty performed with US Army band Six-String Soldiers at North Las Vegas VA Medical Center on September 15th, 2016. 

Critical reception

"--- here it shuffles along with enough conviction and Fogerty's vocals are warm and heartfelt to such a degree that you can easily see him raised on cotton fields just like you could imagine him 'born on the bayou' several months earlier." -George Starostin.  

"Both "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special" have been transformed into CCR songs but still retain what made the originals strong. John Fogerty overdubbed his vocals several times in both songs to create a chorus sound that greatly adds to the tracks. The songs have a distinct soul sound to them which differentiates them from the other songs on the album." -Jimmy, Sputnik Music, April 19th, 2006. 

Fans' views

"My family loves CCR, and we get together and play euchre we have the ccr cranked up, and our favorite sond to sing to is Cottonfields" "gets you feelin' high and happy."

"Great accoustic guitar part, great country song."

"Fun, country-type song you can't get out of your head."

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