Original CCR members lend credence to CCRv, playing this weekend in Sarasota

If you listen to any classic rock station for an hour or so, you're likely to hear the work of Sarasota resident Stu Cook.

Cook was the bassist for Creedence Clearwater Revival, which created some of the biggest and most enduring hits of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including "Proud Mary," "Down on the Corner," "Bad Moon Rising," "Lookin' Out My Back Door," "Fortunate Son" and many, many more.

They did that all in about three years. For the last 20 years, Cook and CCR drummer Doug Clifford have been playing all those songs, and other CCR hits and album tracks, in a band called Credence Clearwater Revisited.

"We call it CCRv, small 'v," Cook said in a phone interview.

CCRv will be playing a home-town show, for Cook at least, at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on Saturday.

Cook and his wife have been living in Sarasota for a couple of years. "Our kids live in Orlando," he said. "Some of our kids. And we wanted to be as close as possible without y'know, doing that." He lets out a little derisive chuckle aimed at the city that Mickey Mouse built.

He's loving Sarasota, he said, and he's found some local musicians he can play non-CCR stuff with, including Jimmie Fadden of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. He gets together with some of his friends for regular but private jam sessions ("We drink a little wine, play a little music and then finish the wine," he said) and occasionally plays club gigs.

But his main pursuit these days is Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

The band, which includes Cook, Clifford, guitarists Steve Gunner and Kurt Griffey, and singer John Tristao, faithfully re-creates all those great old CCR songs. Tristao sounds a lot like CCR singer John Fogerty, Cook said, and since sound technology has improved so much in the past 45 years, a CCRv concert sounds better than a CCR concert ever did.

The show lasts about 90 minutes, which is enough time to play all the hits that most people in the audience want to hear, and still allows time for the band to stretch out on some of the CCR album cuts that allow for improvisation.

The band plays songs from the first six CCR albums, but avoids the last one, the notoriously awful "Mardi Gras," recorded after John Fogerty's brother Tom had quit and tensions within the band were palpable.

"We play the stuff from when we were a quartet," Cook said. "The days when we were a trio, there was a lot of unpleasant stuff going on. It's not too much fun to revisit that period."

Tensions between John Fogerty and his former friends and bandmates are still unresolved. Forgerty once sued CCRv over their name, and lost. He's apparently not done with the lawsuits. "It's regrettable," Cook said.

"We knew each other since we were kids. We learned to play our instruments together. But the legal system is how people resolve their differences in this society, so we just have to deal with it."

Details: 8 p.m. Nov. 21, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets: $55-$85. Information: 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919. Follow twitter.com/martinclear.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Original CCR members lend credence to CCRv, playing this weekend in Sarasota ."