The Old Man Down the Road

Background

"The Old Man Down the Road", backed with "Big Train (From Memphis)", was the first 45 rpm single John Fogerty released in 1984 after the hiatus of eight and a half years. The song was recorded at The Plant Studios in Sausalito, Caliornia, and engineered by Jeffrey Norman and Mark Slagle. The single came out on December 6th, 1984. It peaked at #10 in the USA, #1 in Switzerland, #11 in New Zealand and #49 in Germany. The tune also opened the A-side of the original Centerfield album which went #1 in the USA.

After the members of Creedence Clearwater won the years long court battle over their life savings in spring 1983, the burden lifted, and John Fogerty felt that he could finally write again. "The Old Man Down the Road" started to develope gradually in the spring of next year.  

Fogerty wrote the song in his studio in Albany with his Washburn Falcon guitar. First there was a swamp rock riff dear dear dernt dernt dernt. After finding his muse again, his brain was cooking and he altered it to dernt dernt dear dear dear dear and got it. Finally he played a little rhythm on his special E7 chord (John Fogerty, Fortunate Son, 2015).

The song is about leaving home and all the crud you meet. The first title Fogerty considered for it was "Somewhere Down the Road" but he thought it's a bit too lame and generic. "The Old Man Down the Road" was much more powerful.   Fogerty has never revealed whom the song is about. "The old man doesn’t have to be human. It can be the devil, it can be evil, it can just be a bad wind," he explained in his autobiography. 

Recording session

After watching the baseball All-Star game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on the second week of July 1984, Fogerty booked the Plant Studios in Sausalito, California, and recorded "I Can't Help Myself", "The Old Man Down the Road", "Rock And Roll Girls", "Searchlight", "Zanz Kant Danz" and "I Saw It On T.V." by August 1984 (the rest of the tracks for Centerfield were recorded in September same year).  Fogerty played all the instruments by himself. Because he worked from detailed demos (which he recorded at his studio in Albany before heading for The Plant Studios) and notes, recording was straightforward and painless for the most part (Scott Isler, interview with John Fogerty, Time, January 28th, 1985; Scott Isler, interview with John Fogerty, Musician (US), March 1985).

In "The Old Man", Fogerty used a Tele-type guitar manufactured by Philip Kubicki (1943-2013). It had a sound that was between a Telecaster and a Rickenbacker. The guitar was built of light swamp ash and had three Seymour Duncan pick-ups that could be combined to give a lot of different sounds, among them the strat-like "out-of-phase" that you can hear on the song. A Centerfield poster shows Fogerty with the guitar. Fogerty played the intro of the song on a Modulus Graphite, a Washburn Les Paul copy (Lars Bundesen; Musician, US, March 1985)

Release

The release of "The Old Man Down the Road" single was a big event. Prior weekend before the release date (December 6th, 1984), the key Warner Bros promo people from around the country were flown to Los Angeles for the main purpose of being personally introduced to the new album of John Fogerty so they could give it a huge promotional push back at their local areas.

The song was premiered on US radio stations some days before the official release date. On some stations, it was debuted on the air by Warner Bros representative Greg Lee (Dana Doak, 2014).

Collector's notes

The single (Warner-Pioneer P 1944) was released in Japan with a different cover sleeve on February 25th, 1985.  

A promotional single "The Old Man down the Road" b/w "Rock and Roll Girls" (WB 530) came out already in November 1984. It had no picture sleeve.   

Another 7" single with "The Old Man Down the Road" and "Rock and Roll Girls" on the flipside (Warner GWB 0530, was released in Back to the Hits Series in the USA in 1985.   It had no picture sleeve. 

"The Old Man Down the Road", coupled with "Big Train (From Memphis)", was also launched as a 12" maxi single (Bellaphon 120 07 140) in Germany in December 1984.   

"The Old Man Down the Road" (3:32), coupled with "The Old Man Down the Road" (3:32), was also launched as a 12" maxi single  (WB PRO-A-2234) in the USA in January 1985. The cover photo featured a road sign. (Peter Koers, Green River: The Illustrated Discography, 1999).  

Video

The video for the song starts with images and sounds from a swamp. It's just one shot following the very long guitar cord of John Fogerty through the woods, past various characters. You don't see him until the very end, end then only briefly, performing in the middle of the road.

The footage was filmed on December 17th, 1984. The project was managed by Jeff Ayeroff at Warners (John Fogerty, Fortunate Son, 2015).

A story of the making of the video was exposed on MTV, USA, in January 1985. 

Live versions

"The Old Man Down the Road" has always been an essential part of the live concerts of John Fogerty. There're only a few shows he has skipped the number. It's usually heard at the latter part of the show before "Bad Moon Rising" and "Fortunate Son". The world premiere of the live version took place at the first Farm Aid charity concert in Champaign, Illinois, USA,  on September 22, 1985. It was also the first collaboration between Fogerty and session drummer Kenny Aronoff.   Fogerty also added the song to the setlists during his first tour as a solo artist in 1986. 

During the 1997 Blue Moon Swamp tour, the live version got more muscles when Fogerty made the guitar solos more grinding and powerhouse Aronoff added his own spices to the soup behind his caldrons. Probably the most famous live version was heard at Roskilde Festival on June 26th, 1997. The concert was recorded by the Danish radio DR and aired by various public broadcasters in Nordic countries later in that summer.  

From 2004 onwards until the birthday concert at El Rey in Los Angeles on May 28, 2013, the first or second solo on "The Old Man" featured a guitar march by Fogerty, who always plays the song on a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, and the string players of his backing group. From autumn 2013 onwards, it was replaced by a longer jam during which John traded solos with his son Shane.   

The song appears on each three John Fogerty concert DVDs: Premonition (1998), The Long Road Home (2006) and Comin' Down the Road (2009). 

From the autumn tour 2013 on, soundboard recordings of the concerts of John Fogerty have been officially available as files.  

Extraordinary live versions of "The Old Man Down the Road" include the one Fogerty performed with the Sound City Players in Austin, Texas, on March 16th, 2013, and the one he delivered with Widespread Panic at Interlocken Festival in Arrington, Virginia, USA, on September 7th, 2013.  

Critical reception

"'The Old Man Down the Road,' an anxious tale of foreboding, is such a pure reflection of the Creedence style that some fans might well think it a leftover jewel from the Creedence vaults." -Robert Hilburn, The Los Angeles Times, December 4th, 1984. 

"Ah, but it is great to hear that voice again! It almiost springs out at you in the opening  of the first track,  first  side, "The Old Man Down the Road" (good video of that tune, too), sounding for all the world like a classic old Creedence song." -Houston Post, January 20th, 1985.  

"Like many people, when I hear 'Bad Moon Rising' hairs begin to sprout out of my spine. Creedence were grand in their heyday, so I was looking forward to Fogerty's revival. Sadly, this song isn't even vibrant trad rock but a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe the album will be redeeming." -The Sounds, UK, February 16th, 1985. 

"The success of "The Old Man Down the Road" - a natural single, but not the album's best cut - proves that Fogerty's sensibility has an enduring popular appeal." -Jim Miller, Newsweek, February 18th, 1985.    

"Fogerty makes the most of this ploy in "The Old Man Down the Road," a song which, on the surface, isn't about anything but mystery and fear. But as you're pulled into Fogerty's swamp rock groove, it slowly sinks in that, surely as "Who'll Stop the Rain" was about Nixon's Vietnam, this "Old Man" is our own Ronald Reagan, he of the "voices speaking riddles." It isn't anything in the words so much as in the way Fogerty's delivery makes the fear palpable, and that's ultimately what makes it stick." -The Musician, US, March 1985.  

"The mythopoeic genre piece "The Old Man Down the Road" was the keynote single not out of commercial caution but because it's the strongest thing on the record, yet does anyone claim it's the equal of "Proud Mary" or "Green River" or even "Rockin' All Over the World"?" -Robert Christgau, Consumer Guide

"What a great opening riff. The vocals really make their mark stating how you are forced to face the inevitable. Good guitar fills throughout." -Glenn J. Wiener

“'The Old Man Down the Road' does have an indelible riff with a subtle blend of guitars – acoustic, electric, and slide – along with some classic tremolo effects to make it all so cool. This also features an interesting vocal melody and just the right lead riff to make this all quintessential Fogerty." -Classic Rock Review, July 28th, 2015. 

Fans' views

"I'll never forget the first time I heard this song. I had been a CCR fan for a number of years (though was too young during their heyday). I had heard of John's almost hermit like existence since the break-up. I had heard rumours of a new album and then I heard this on the radio. "Oh man, he's still got it! He's back!!!!" Vintage JF, vintage swamp rock."

"I had a dream about John Fogerty the night before this record came out. I didn't know the record was coming out. I woke up that morning wondering why I dreamed about JCF. Then I got in my car and the DJ on the radio said John Fogerty had a new record just released that day, and he played "The Old Man Down the Road."

"A quintessential rocker from the Centerfield album. One of the songs which will be remembered as defining what we listened to in the 1980's."

"When I hear this song the images it conjures up are alwyas differnet but always swampy and spooky...A radio favourite around here it's on all the time."

Controversy

In 1985, Saul Zaentz, the boss of Fantasy Records, which owned the distribution and publishing rights to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, brought a series of lawsuits against John Fogerty, including a claim that the music from Fogerty's 1984 song "The Old Man Down the Road" was too similar to "Run Through the Jungle" which Creedence Clearwater recorded in 1970. Zaentz won some of his claims against Fogerty, but lost on the copyright issue (Wikipedia).

Thanks to Jukka. 

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