Willy and the Poor Boys is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, released on October 29, 1969, by Fantasy Records.
In addition, the group had performed at the landmark Woodstock Festival in August and made several high-profile television appearances, including The Ed Sullivan Show.
"That was a bit of overkill and I never did understand that," Clifford stated to Jeb Wright of Goldmine in 2013, "Fogerty told us that if we were ever off the charts, then we would be forgotten... To make it worse, it might sound funny, but we had double-sided hits, and that was kind of a curse, as we were burning through material twice as fast.
Originally, The album was planned to be formed around a concept introduced in "Down on the Corner", with Creedence taking on the identity of an old-time jug band called "Willy and The Poor Boys".
[10] Fogerty told Rolling Stone: Julie Nixon was hanging around with David Eisenhower, and you just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be involved with the war.
The song has been widely used to protest military actions and elitism in Western society, particularly in the United States; as an added consequence of its popularity, it has even been used in completely unrelated situations, such as to advertise blue jeans.
In 2013 the singer-songwriter told David Cavanagh of Uncut that the tune was his response to Nixon emerging from the White House one afternoon and sneering at the anti-war demonstrators outside, with Fogerty remembering, "He said, 'Nothing you do here today will have any effect on me.
As recounted in the VH1 Legends episode on the band, Fogerty once stated to Time magazine, "I see things through lower class eyes."
The Chuck Berry-guitar romp "It Came Out of the Sky" tells the tale of a farmer who finds a UFO in his field and unwittingly becomes the most famous man in America.
The album also includes two instrumental tracks in "Poorboy Shuffle" and "Side o' the Road", the former of which segues directly into the song "Feelin' Blue."
The album contains two songs associated with blues and folk legend Lead Belly: "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special".
Willy and the Poor Boys was released in November 1969 as Fantasy 8397,[6] and in 1970 made the Top 50 in six countries,[15][16][17][18][19][20] including France, where it reached No. 1.
[30] In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau also believed it was the group's best record and wrote, "Fogerty's subtlety as a political songwriter (have you ever really dug the words of 'Fortunate Son'?)
[25][clarification needed] For his Rolling Stone review of the album's 40th anniversary reissue, Barry Walters called it "relaxed" and gave credit to Fogerty for writing a protest song, "Fortunate Son", that has a good beat to it.