In the age of the single download, Jeff Harford rediscovers the album...
That year, three of those top-selling platters were released over a stunning 10-month stretch.
Bayou Country, Green River and Willy And The Poor Boys placed CCR's backbeat-driven mix of swamp rock, delta blues and country in a chart-friendly nook of its own as America emerged from the Summer of Love.
To the left were British classic-rock bands Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones; to the right were apple-pie pop acts the Archies and the Monkees.
Green River is where CCR's tight, tour-honed playing combines most fluently with the ever-darkening ideas flowing from singer-guitarist John Fogerty's prolific pen, paring back the extended instrumental jams that mark earlier releases.
So economical is it, the nine-track album clocks in at a little less than 30 minutes.
Fogerty is immersed in disquieting thoughts, writing of threats and dangers that are bound to trap the unwary.
Jangling rockabilly single Bad Moon Rising warns of Armageddon, while the hard-driving Commotion rails against big-city turmoil and Tombstone Shadow bemoans the gloom that seems to dog every brighter moment.
Even the boogieing opening title track, which recalls memories of an idyllic childhood haunt, contains a warning that you're gonna find the world is smouldering.
And on country-rocker Lodi, the luckless songsmith is trapped in small-town USA with no means of escape.
But the music is anything but mournful.
This is the stuff of dance-floor shimmying and party-time sing-alongs, celebrating the joys to be found in cathartic hootin' and hollerin'.
Fogerty's distinctive vocals cut through the slap-back reverb like a foghorn in the night, calling attention to his travails with all the portentous power of a Pentecostal preacher.
He's in his element, with plenty more to say to his growing audience.
