Willy And The Poor Boys (INT'L Retail Exclusive)＜タワーレコード限定/Yellow Smoke Vinyl＞

1969年10月29日にファンタジー・レコードからリリースされたCCRの4枚目のスタジオ・アルバム。

同年にバンドがリリースした3枚のスタジオ・アルバムの最後を飾る作品であり、『Green River』のわずか3ヵ月後にリリースされた。このアルバムには 「Down On The Corner 」と 「Fortunate Son 」が収録されている。1970年、このアルバムは6カ国でトップ50入りを果たし、1990年には2xプラチナに認定された。2020年、ローリング・ストーン誌はこのアルバムを「史上最高のアルバム500」の193位にランクした。
初のカラード・ヴァイナル。

日本ではタワーレコード Exclusive盤で Yellow Smoke カラード盤。

Make no mistake, Willy & the Poor Boys is a fun record, perhaps the breeziest album CCR ever made. Apart from the eerie minor-key closer "Effigy" (one of John Fogerty's most haunting numbers), there is little of the doom that colored Green River. Fogerty's rage remains, blazing to the forefront on "Fortunate Son," a working-class protest song that cuts harder than any of the explicit Vietnam protest songs of the era, which is one of the reasons that it hasn't aged where its peers have. Also, there's that unbridled vocal from Fogerty and the ferocious playing on CCR, which both sound fresh as they did upon release. "Fortunate Son" is one of the greatest, hardest rock & rollers ever cut, so it might seem to be out of step with an album that is pretty laid-back and friendly, but there's that elemental joy that by late '69 was one of CCR's main trademarks. That joy runs throughout the album, from the gleeful single "Down on the Corner" and the lazy jugband blues of "Poorboy Shuffle" through the great slow blues jam "Feelin' Blue" to the great rockabilly spiritual "Don't Look Now," one of Fogerty's overlooked gems. The covers don't feel like throwaways, either, since both "Cotton Fields" and "The Midnight Special" have been overhauled to feel like genuine CCR songs. It all adds up to one of the greatest pure rock & roll records ever cut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine