Creedence Clearwater Revival – "Suzie Q" (1968)

I like the way you walk

I like the way you talk

Most of the cover records I’ve chosen for the inaugural class of inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE’ COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME were recorded only a year or two after the originals.

But Creedence Clearwater Revival’s cover of Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit, “Susie Q,” wasn’t released until 1968.  (CCR titled their cover “Suzie Q” instead of “Susie Q” – I don’t know why.)

Dale Hawkins

Click here to listen to the Dale Hawkins original.  The CCR cover is much more similar to it than I would have expected.

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Creedence was the master of long tracks – “Suzie Q” is over eight minutes long.  

I remember playing on the jukebox at a Pizza Hut in my hometown (Joplin, MO) when I was in eighth grade.  I must have really liked it because I had to spend two dimes to hear the whole thing, not just one.  (Because it was so long, the record company had to use both sides of a 45 – the song faded out halfway through at the end of side one, and picked up where it had left off on side two.)

I could listen to the CCR “Suzie Q” for eight hours instead of eight minutes.  The CCR rhythm section didn’t believe in frills and furbelows – their approach was so simple that it seemed like anyone should have been able to do the same thing.  But I can’t think of anyone as good at that style as they were.

Click here to listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Suzie Q.”  If you didn’t already believe that less is often more, this record should convince you.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.