Creedence Clearwater Revival Performs “Proud Mary” At Royal Albert Hall In Newly-Unearthed Footage [Video]

Creedence Clearwater Revival cracked open the vaults for a previously unreleased performance of “Proud Mary”. Taken from the band’s legendary concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 14th, 1970, the single will appear on the upcoming live release, Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, out on September 16th.

Taking the stage at the famed London venue just days after The Beatles announced their breakup, CCR was poised to take a grab at the title of rock’s biggest band. Though the group would dissolve less than two years later, John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty, Doug Clifford, and Stu Cook were riding high in the spring of 1970, and this lively performance of one of the group’s many signature tunes proves as much.

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall will also coincide with the release of Travelin’ Band, a documentary tracing CCR’s roots from El Cerrito, CA to some of music’s biggest stages including Woodstock and the Royal Albert Hall. Narrated by The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, the documentary culminates with newly unearthed video of CCR at Royal Albert Hall, marking the only concert footage of the band’s original lineup to be released in its entirety.

Jeff Bridges sets the stage for this watershed concert in the documentary,

In only 12 months the band had achieved five Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums [Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys] on the American charts, outselling the Beatles. They had appeared on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show and played to over a million people across America, including the hundreds of thousands gathered at Woodstock. ‘John, Tom, Stu, and Doug’ may not have had the familiar ring to it of ‘John, Paul, George, and Ringo,’ but Creedence were challenging the Beatles for the title of the biggest group in the world.

Back in 1980, Fantasy Records released The Royal Albert Hall Concert by CCR, only to discover a few months later that the audio actually came from a January 1970 show at Oakland Alameda-County Coliseum. According to an article published in Crash Box at the time, it turns out the label—which now hosts a roster including Tedeschi Trucks Band, Nathaniel Rateliff, Grace Potter, and more—mislabeled the master tapes and quickly repressed later copies as The Concert.

Watch Creedence Clearwater Revival perform “Proud Mary” at Royal Albert Hall from the upcoming archival release available here for pre-order.

Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Proud Mary” – 4/14/70