THE FOGERTY REVIVAL, PART II

It’s the morning of John Fogerty’s first concert in 14 years and the former leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival is prowling the aisles of a Western clothing store here. He’s looking for shirts and boots for the tour.

With Creedence more than a decade ago, Fogerty favored plaid, Western-styled flannel shirts. Now, he seems more attracted to solid colors. For the concert 10 hours later, he eventually settles on a black vest and a black shirt. Still Western, but not the Creedence trademark.

That wardrobe shift is matched by a subtle, though unmistakable change in the music on Fogerty’s new “Eye of the Zombie” album (due in stores this week). Where he deliberately focused on his Creedence roots in last year’s comeback album, “Centerfield,” Fogerty moves toward more contemporary sounds and themes.

The most striking change is in Fogerty’s themes.

“Centerfield” was a hit with critics and record-buyers last year, but there were complaints that the album was caught in a time warp--that Fogerty, who had taken a nine-year break from recording to resolve personal and business issues, was living in the past.

“I Saw It on TV,” the most poignant song, spoke about the disillusionment with Nixon, Watergate and Vietnam--with the sentiments mostly expressed from the viewpoint of a man who lost his son in the war. Two other songs--”Vanz Kant Danz” and “Mr. Greed”--were interpreted as reflections on Fogerty’s bitter financial dispute with Fantasy Records, which released all of Creedence’s records, and its founder Saul Zaentz.

On the way to the clothing store here, Fogerty, 41, reflected on the criticism:

“When ‘Centerfield’ first came out, I thought that was a lot of hot air. Now I can see that they may be right, but then again: they didn’t live in my shoes (during the Fantasy dispute). I’d like to let that whole thing go, but I can’t. Here we are in 1986 and I still have four or five years of lawsuits and trials ahead of me with those people.”

(Zaentz is suing Fogerty for $142 million, charging he was slandered and libeled by the songs on “Centerfield” and by statements Fogerty made in interviews last year. A second suit maintains Fantasy is entitled to the profits earned by Fogerty’s 1985 hit, “The Old Man Down the Road,” claiming the tune infringes on the Fantasy copyright of “Run Through the Jungle,” a song Fogerty wrote for Creedence.)

On the Watergate/Nixon issue, Fogerty added, “I’ll agree with you a song like ‘I Saw It on TV’ is an old issue if you are 28 years old. But if you are 40 years old, it is not an old issue. It still lives with you. Richard Nixon is still the guy responsible for all those casualties . . . and the guy who lost his son never got his son back. That’s permanent to him. The pain doesn’t go away just because new issues appear.”

Fogerty is one of rock’s most acclaimed figures. A cinch to be named to the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Northern California native wrote, sang and produced a flurry of Top 10 hits during his days with Creedence in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

His songs--ranging from “Proud Mary” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” to “Bad Moon Rising” and “Fortunate Son”--combined celebration and comment in ways that have made them a continuing part of the rock repertoire.

But Fogerty was so tangled up in legal and financial problems by the mid-’70s that he stopped making records for nine years. He also didn’t tour after Creedence’s final show in 1972. The fact that “Centerfield” followed such a lengthy break was what made its success so remarkable.

The album was named one of the 10 best LPs of 1985 in the Village Voice’s annual poll of U.S. pop writers and it reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard sales charts.

Though Fogerty comes across as an unusually confident person, he admits that the success was more than he had imagined.

“When you wait 10 years or whatever to make a record, you sure don’t count on it being a big hit,” he said, during the shopping trek. “I thought all I was doing was kind of saying, ‘OK, I’m alive.’ I can see now there was a lot of affection out there for the music Creedence made. When most people go away in pop music, they just go away. People go, ‘OK, see ya. . . . Next.’ For some reason, I went away and they didn’t bury me.”

Fogerty, a shrewd rock strategist, wanted his return album last year to have a lot of the Creedence flavor. “Otherwise, I thought I’d be asking too much of the audience . . . the idea of accepting the fact that I was back and that I was doing something different from what they knew about me.”

This time, however, he wanted a more contemporary edge.

“When I started doing this album, I knew it had to hold something special in it and I didn’t know what that meant for the first few weeks. Then, I realized one aspect of it being special meant that it had to be different from my other albums, especially ‘Centerfield.’ ”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t find bits and pieces that sound like Creedence. That music is indigenous to me. There’s no way I can escape that sound.”

“Zombie” lacks the immediate accessibility and warmth of “Centerfield,” but it is a more daring and confident work. The title track spotlights the ominous, apocalyptic edge that also surfaces in other key tracks.

Creedence’s country and blues strains still surface in places, but there’s a more urgent, synthesizer-based tone to much of the new work. Rather than a trendy techo-pop sound, however, Fogerty employs the synthesizer in a more biting, exclamatory way--similar to what Don Henley has done in much of his post-Eagles LPs.

In the album’s title tune, Fogerty uses a wilderness tribe, clinging together around a fire at night while a beast stalks, as a metaphor for contemporary man and his inability to protect himself from terrorists or an insane killer in a shopping-mall. Sample line: “Shadows on the mountain / And the night begins to fall / Gather up the children before the darkness takes us all.”

Fogerty explained, “The point is it has taken us 100,000 years or so to develop civilization. We have rules, laws, courts, police . . . all this structure and we think we are so safe. But we’re not that much different from a tribe living in the wilds. Twenty feet from the fire is the beast--and that’s the way we are.

“I’m not talking about just formal terrorism, but the guy down the street that we used to call the ‘lunatic fringe.’ He just walks into a Macy’s one day and blows everybody up, including himself. That’s the whole point of the song. He’s a zombie.”

The sense of darkness reoccurs in several other tunes, including the ominous “Change in the Weather,” sirenesque “Headlines” and biting “Violence Is Golden.” The latter is about military escalation as a means of improving the economy. Though an avid sportsman, Fogerty is in favor of gun control--and he sees no conflict in that position.

“The fact that I use a rifle when I go hunting doesn’t mean I’m gun happy,” he said. “I don’t buy the NRA (National Rifle Assn.) argument that the Bill of Rights means every citizen has the right go out and buy every gun he wants. If we could somehow outlaw handguns, it would be great.”

Equally biting is “Soda Pop,” a slap at rock-star endorsements--using the high-profile Pepsi campaign as a special target. Sample line from the song which features a mocking, almost schoolyard rhythm: “Take a million dollars, baby / Put it in my hand / Put my favorite retouched photo / On the soda can . . . / There’s a generation out there / Waiting to be tapped. . . .”

About the song, he said, “Imagine a guy like me talking about ‘Violence Is Golden’ or ‘Mr. Greed,’ then turn around and signing a deal with Pepsi. Where is my credibility? When are you going to believe me again? I’ve hated that whole subject for ages.”

Don’t get the feeling that the whole album is topical or angry. Two of the most appealing tracks involve softer emotions. “Knocking on Your Door” is a romantic, give-me-one-more-chance pleading in the most seductive, Memphis-styled R&B; tradition, while “Sail Away” is a statement about release from tensions that is as lovely as anything Fogerty has done. However, a second R&B; workout, “Wasn’t That a Woman,” is far less successful, lacking the crisp vision of most Fogerty tunes.

If the new album is a step away from the Creedence sound, Fogerty’s live show--which is expected to reach Southern California before Christmas--is a total break from the early days. Fogerty did no Creedence number during the nearly two hour show at the Mud Island Amphitheatre here.

Surprisingly, the 4,000 fans at the show accepted the move without any boos or even shouts for “Proud Mary” or “Bad Moon Rising.” Most people at the show here assumed he was prevented legally playing the Creedence songs because of the lawsuits with Fantasy. In fact, there is no prohibition.

“The reason is strictly emotional,” Fogerty said near the end of the shopping trip. “I had to get up every single day for all those years and go to work (the rehearsal studio) without really having a job (because he wasn’t recording).

“I was a nobody, a has-been, an out-of-it with no connections, no future prospects. On the way home, I’d hear ‘Proud Mary’ on the radio and think, ‘Gee, my life’s work is making their life incredibly comfortable.’ All that was just too much emotionally for me to give them any more money--so don’t ever expect me to sing one of those songs again.”

Isn’t there a sadness in that?

“Sure, how would you like to disenfranchise your own children? I don’t think it’s cool, but to sing those songs would be worse for me.”

Fogerty started the tour here because he identifies most of his musical influences with Memphis--the initial rockabilly crowd of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash as well as blues figures like Howlin’ Wolf and Junior Parker, and the ‘60s R&B; contingent that included Otis Redding and Booker T. and the MGs.

Still, Fogerty had no interest in stopping by Graceland, even though he passed within a mile of Elvis Presley’s old home--now a booming tourist attraction.

“Don’t get me wrong,”, he said. “Elvis is still an idol to me, but that whole Graceland thing is kind of morbid. I would rather think of him in terms of records like ‘Mystery Train’ than in terms of what people have done since his death.”

If Presley was a casualty of too much fame, Fogerty might have ended up a casualty during his decade-long hiatus from rock of too little exposure.

“I feel like I am ‘me’ again,” he said. “It’s great to be back on the road and I’m thrilled with the new band. But there were times over the years where you had to deal psychologically with the absence of your career .

“It’s a self-image thing. You think about how things look like to the outside? I knew I wasn’t a loser--certainly not a quitter--but I remember the doubts in peoples’ eyes. Still, I knew I’d be here. I knew I’d have another No. 1 record again. I knew I’d be on tour--and that I would start it in Memphis.”