Willy and the Poor Boys

Released only weeks after Green River, it held Down on the Corner and Fortunate Son, the two sides of a single that peaked together at No. 3. Clifford later called three albums in one year overkill, since the double-sided hits meant the band was burning through material twice as fast. Fogerty replied that he had been told not to waste great B-sides and had answered that the Beatles and Elvis did exactly that.

The album was first planned around the old-time jug band of Down on the Corner, with the band playing Willy and the Poor Boys. The idea was dropped, except for Poorboy Shuffle and the cover, which photographer Basul Parik shot at the Duck Kee Market, owned by Ruby Lee, at Peralta Street and Hollis Street in Oakland. Fortunate Son grew from the wedding of David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon. Effigy, which closes the album, is also about Richard Nixon: Fogerty told Uncut he wrote it after Nixon came out of the White House, sneered at anti-war demonstrators and said he was going back in to watch the football game. Don't Look Now voices concern for the working poor, and Fogerty told Time that he saw things through lower-class eyes. It Came Out of the Sky is a Chuck Berry-style story of a farmer who finds a UFO, and Cotton Fields and The Midnight Special are Lead Belly songs. Fogerty said he learned of Lead Belly through Pete Seeger.

In 1970 the album made the top 50 in six countries and reached No. 1 in France. It was certified Gold in December 1970 and 2x Platinum in December 1990. Rolling Stone's first review called it the band's best yet, and Robert Christgau of the Village Voice also thought it their best record. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it one of the greatest pure rock and roll albums ever cut. Rolling Stone placed it at No. 392 in its 2003 list of 500 greatest albums, No. 309 in 2012 and No. 193 in 2020. Concord reissued it on CD on 10 June 2008 with three bonus tracks.