Proud Mary

"Proud Mary" is a song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival written by John Fogerty. It was released as a single in January1969 by Fantasy Records and on the band's second studio album, Bayou Country. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five singles to peak at No. 2 for the group. Later that year, R&B singer Solomon Burke released a rendition on Bell Records that reached No. 15 on the Billboard R&B chart. Another version by R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner, released on Liberty Records in 1971, did nearly as well as the original on the charts, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No 5 on the Billboard R&B chart. They won a Grammy Award for their rendition in 1972. Background and recording In a 1969 interview, Fogerty said that he wrote it in the two days after he was discharged from the National Guard. In the liner notes for the 2008 expanded reissue of Bayou Country, Joel Selvin explained that the songs for the album started when Fogerty was in the National Guard, that the riffs for "Proud Mary", "Born on the Bayou", and "Keep on Chooglin'" were conceived by Fogerty at a concert in the Avalon Ballroom, and "Proud Mary" was arranged from parts of different songs, one of which was about a washerwoman named Mary. The line "Left a good job in the city" was written following Fogerty's discharge from the National Guard, and the line "rollin' on the river" was from a movie by Will Rogers.