Concord Music Publishing has announced that John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son,” recorded and released in 1969 by Creedence Clearwater Revival and a rock classic ever since, has surpassed one billion streams on Spotify.
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The new achievement comes only three months after another song from Fogerty’s peerless catalog that is part of the fabric of rock history, CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” reached the same milestone.
Both songs thus become part of Spotify’s Billions Club of fewer than 450 songs in recording history that have reached the rarefied atmosphere of such gargantuan streaming numbers. Other compositions in the Concord Music Publishing catalog to reach the benchmark include Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” and Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings.”
Fogerty has been on the road with his band in recent weeks playing these and countless other all-time greats from his repertoire on the European leg of his Celebration tour. After completing that leg of the itinerary with a festival appearance in the Netherlands on June 9, he will resume shows in North America with a show in Dauphin, Manitoba on July 9. He has shows booked until mid-August including a July 14 date at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO.
“Fortunate Son,” a single from CCR’s fourth studio album, Willy and the Poor Boys, has been covered almost 100 times on record. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band included a live 1983 version of it on the 1986 studio album Like A Rock, and U2 had their take on it as a track on the single “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” in 1992. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s live rendition was on the 2010 album The 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concerts and it has also been cut by Pearl Jam, Cat Power, Santana featuring Scott Stapp, and Death Cab for Cutie.
“I am humbled and honored to have my song “Fortunate Son” achieve one billion streams [on Spotify],” says Fogerty. “I wrote this song to express my outrage about the unequal treatment of people in our culture. These words came straight from my heart, and I still feel the same today. I am looking forward to celebrating this song with my fans.”
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