J Fogerty and S Winwood concert, Sun Sept 6 2026
Karen, Bruce, Herb, and I went to hear Steve Winwood and John Fogerty at Tanglewood on Sept 6, 2026. I'd never been to Tanglewood and while I had hoped that my first concert there would be classical I wasn't about to miss the chance to hear Fogerty. I'm a Creedence Clearwater Revival fan and he wrote most of their biggest songs and sang lead vocals on them.
It's a wonderful venue, it made me think of Ravinia, the summer music festival outside of Chicago. Tanglewood is more rustic. One of the highlights of our concert was seeing a group of fossilized whiteys rockin' out. I hope to be one of those fossilized whiteys myself one day.
Winwood was the opening act. I knew him from "Back in the High Life Again" and "Higher Love." He and his band opened with an instrumental set - - the first song had a sexy Santana groove that I liked a lot. This pseudo overture was maybe too repetitive through of course as soon as I wrote that in my notes it was made interesting by a few solos.
The band was good: Winwood on vocals, occasionally also on piano or electric guitar, another guy on piano or Hammond organ, drums, congas/bongos, bass, and two women singing backup. Winwood sounded OK in his first song though Karen picked up on a bit of a "Where'd that note go?" problem. This is a reference to Mario Cantone imitating Liza Minnelli in *The Aristocrats.*
The next song (the highlight of his set) was "Why Can't We Live Together?", a song I love from the Sade recording but was originally written and performed by Timmy Thomas. This song hit Winwood's voice in the right spot, he sounded like Al Green (never a bad choice). Tanglewood has huge screens showing what's happening onstage for those of us in the lawn seats and it was a treat to see his one finger playing the distinctive offbeat one-note motif on the Hammond organ.
I had a fun journey getting to the next song - - at first I thought it was "Golden Years" by David Bowie, then I thought it was "Long Train Running" by the Doobie Brothers. But it was "I'm a Man" (yes I am!), a song by The Spencer Davis Group, which had included Winwood back in the day. That song went well. I don't know what the next song was but it had a flute solo by the saxophone player. Always a treat hearing a sax player on flute.
The next song had our first example of what I call The 7.5 Problem. Winwood was consistently a quarter step to a half step flat - - not just the higher notes, his entire vocal line was lower than the rest of the band. It was perplexing and a little sickening. At first it made me think of how Italian orchestras used to play at A 432 while American orchestras were playing at A 440. That's 440 vibrations per minute for an A above middle C - - 432 is slightly (but noticeably) lower. Renata Tebaldi had a hard time getting used to that when she first sang at the Met, all of her roles felt different.
I feel that description is a little too Music School for general consumption so instead I describe it as the rest of the band standing on the eighth floor while Winwood is on the landing of the stairs halfway between seven and eight. He was looking at the eighth floor (and they were looking at him, with concern) but he wasn't moving from where he was. The 7.5 Problem.
Though to be honest when the backup singers came in he went up to where they were, which makes me think it was more of a hearing or sound mix problem, not a vocal problem. Whatever it was it wasn't pretty. And someone should know about it and come up with a solution.
Winwood was back on the right floor for "Back in the High Life Again," done with a mellow groove, it was nice. And it had an unexpected Bolero moment at the end, that made me smile. Next was his biggest hit, "Higher Love." Though, since he was back on floor 7.5, Bruce suggested maybe we could call it a "Lower Love." The funniest remark of the night!
Their set ended with "Gimme Some Lovin'," another Spencer Davis hit. Winwood sounded good on that song, it was nice to end that way (though the memory of floor 7.5 won't leave me anytime soon).
There was a short break while John Fogerty's band set up. Their set started with a longish video introduction by Fogerty, giving us an overview of his career and his recent legal troubles (look that up on Wikipedia, it's quite the saga). I was expecting the video to end with him saying, "I'm sorry I'm not able to be there tonight, I'm stuck in Peoria" or "I'm in the ICU" or "I'm daid!" but thankfully it ended with him and the band doing "Bad Moon Rising." He sounded AMAZING, not much different from the original CCR recordings, which were made almost 60 years ago. His voice had tang and thrust and was always in tune, thank you.
Next: "Up Around the Bend" and "Born on the Bayou." Fogerty said that he'd bought the guitar he was playing back in '69 and had played it at Woodstock!
"Who'll Stop the Rain," "Lookin' Out My Back Door," and "Heard It Through the Grapevine."
They did a song that he wrote for his "beautiful wife Julie." It wasn't a good song and while the wailing, screaming saxophone solo at the end was sort of exciting, it was not supported by the song in which it occurred.
Next up was a song by the band the CCR guys were in before CCR, The Golliwogs - - "Fight Fire." KILLER song with a serious surf guitar groove. I'll be listening to that the next time I'm on the Stairmaster (or whatever they call it) at Planet Fitness.
I didn't know the next song but it featured a three-way guitar jam by Fogerty and his sons Tyler and Shane. I broke into a fit of giggles imagining MY dad doing a similar routine with me and my brother Howard. Or my brother Patrick, equally implausible.
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?", "Down on the Corner," and "The Old Man Down the Road." I kept waiting for them to play my favorite CCR song, "Suzie Q," but they didn't. Fogerty didn't write it so I guess he thought it was OK to leave it out. I did NOT but I guess I'll have to get over it.
As expected, they closed with "Proud Mary." Here he is with those cute sons of his doing an acoustic version in London last year. It had lots more grit and impact at our performance but this gives you a sense of Fogerty's voice at this stage of his life:
Comments