Creedence Clearwater Revival have released the version of “Proud Mary” they performed at Woodstock in 1969, ahead of the launch of the full live set on Aug. 2.

The 11-track Live at Woodstock arrives two weeks short of 50 years after the performance, which has never been previously officially released in full.

You can listen to “Proud Mary” below.

CCR didn’t appear in the Woodstock movie, which was released in 1970 and helped define the iconic position of the festival in cultural history and also balanced the books after the event itself became a financial disaster. It nearly became a human disaster too.

“We weren't in the movie on purpose,” frontman John Fogerty told Billboard in a new interview. “Nobody really understood what the movie would be. The track they wanted to use was ‘Bad Moon Rising.' I just didn't feel it was our best work. At that point in time Creedence was the No. 1 band in the world. I felt like, ‘Why go backwards?’”

But "over time," he noted, "there had been so many requests – probably 10 years after Woodstock, and then the 20th anniversary and so on. Maybe around the late '80s I began to think that, historically, it is what it is. It doesn't matter if it's well done or not well done, it became more a fact of history. Therefore, nobody was hurt by it. It was just history.”

“I thought we played good, and in some cases I thought we played great," bassist Stu Cook recalled. "Just like any show it has its highs and lows from a performer's point of view, most of which the audience has no clue about. I thought we played a journeyman's set that had some real high points. It's a shame we weren't in the film, but that was not my decision. It wasn't really supported by the other guys in the band.”

 

 

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