Few things in life are as heartbreaking as lost guitar stories, but on the flip side, nothing warms the heart quite like a reunion tale – and John Fogerty once experienced both extremes with his most iconic electric guitar.
The guitar in question is Fogerty's modded Rickenbacker 325, nicknamed ACME. Fogerty had played it on stage at Woodstock and then on the Ed Sullivan Show, both in 1969.
In the studio, it was essential in shaping the sounds of some of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s biggest hits – including Up Around the Bend, Green River, and Travelin’ Band – and nearly every other standard tuning song from their Bayou Country album onwards.
He’d customized it too, adding a humbucker lifted from a Gibson Les Paul at the bridge position, installing a Bigsby vibrato, and removing the Rickenbacker nameplate from the headstock. “ACME” was inscribed in its place in yellow paint, a nod to the fictional cartoon munitions firm with which Wile E. Coyote had a loyalty card.
Then, around 1973 or 1974, Fogerty foolishly let it go for free after CCR’s demise.
“[It was a] dumb idea, [a] foolish idea, to give a guitar away that has meant so much to you and has been so much a part of your recording, right?” he says, rhetorically, on the Sodajerker On Songwriting podcast.
“But I’m just a human swimming in the river that we’re all swimming in, and I was just affected by my feelings, so I gave this guitar away.”
Years later, he almost bought it back off Norman Harris of Norman’s Rare Guitars, but even with a discounted $90,000 price tag, Fogerty resisted splurging on a reunion.
“Happily, Julie [Fogerty's wife] went out and found my old ACME guitar, several years ago. It must be about eight years ago now, something like that,” he relays. “I had given it away to a 12-year-old kid, shortly after Creedence broke up. I think at the time, I was kind of heartbroken about my band breaking up, and all of that… hurt and heartbroken and wanting to turn over a new leaf and start a new page.
One Christmas morning – in 2016 by Fogerty’s estimations – it was there, under the tree. The greatest gift.
“I was immediately struck dumb,” he had told Rolling Stone in 2017. “I turned to my wife and said, ‘Am I about to get overwhelmed here?’
“It sounds great. And more importantly, it sounds like that guitar that’s on these records.”
Now, with it back in his possession – and after Fogerty got his publishing rights back in 2023 after 50 years – he’s used ACME to re-record a host of CCR classics.
“The hairs stood up on the back of my neck,” he says, having used it to track the guitar solo in the reprised Green River. “It was exactly that sound, 100 percent. I dare say I haven’t heard that sound since those days when I had the guitar.”
Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, released last week via Concord and ushered in a long-craved new era in Fogerty’s career.
