By Bob Berry

The other day, I wrote about The Rolling Stones’ first #1 album, Out Of Our Heads, which topped the charts for 3 weeks. That was small potatoes.

Try NINE weeks at Number One. That’s what Creedence Clearwater Revival did with their fifth album,  Cosmo’s Factory, this week in 1970.

The album title came from drummer Doug Clifford’s nickname for the garage in Berkeley, California the band used for almost daily rehearsals, so that practice was like goin’ to work. One thing for sure, the practice paid off, because Cosmo’s Factory was loaded with hits!

January 1970’s double-sided smash “Travelin’ Band” and “Who’ll Stop The Rain. Another double-sided smash in April, “Run Through The Jungle” and “Up Around The Bend”.  And “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”, released in July. Top 5 hits all, seemingly a career nowadays, complimented by cool album cuts that were on every CCR LP.

Including one very special cut, with roots at Motown on West Grand Boulevard, in Detroit. The epic, “swamp-rock soulful”, 11-minute version of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. Sadly, it appears CCR never did the full version for video, so we’ll have to settle for the four minute edit.