In the late 60s and early 70s, when rock bands favored short, memorable, and punchy names like Led Zeppelin, the Doors, and the Who, here came a group with a long-winded, vaguely pretentious, mouthful of a name — Creedence Clearwater Revival. Three words, each seemingly carefully chosen — certainly it must have some deeper meaning.

When Saul Zaentz of Fantasy Records signed the up-and-coming band, it was called the Golliwogs. “I hated the name,” Zaentz said in Bad Moon Rising. “It was ridiculous — a stupid name.” The executive struck a deal with the musicians. They’d come up with ten new name possibilities, and he’d come up with another ten, and they’d find one everybody agreed on. According to guitarist Tom Fogerty, some of the suggestions included Muddy Rabbit, Deep Bottle Blue, and Credence Nuball and the Ruby. His bandmates became obsessed with the latter, inspired by the real name of a friend of Fogerty. Then they started surgically building a title, adding an “e” to make Credence into “Creedence,” suggesting a “creed,” or a deeply held belief. Clearwater was taken from an ad for Olympia Beer, produced from “cool, clear water.” Then John Fogerty put those together with “Revival,” because the band felt like they were getting a second wind with their record deal.

In 1970, Creedence Clearwater Revival took the John Fogerty composition “Travelin’ Band” all the way to No. 2 on the pop chart. It was both new and old at once — a fast and hard-rocking song with howling vocals from Fogerty that spoke to the contemporary rise of heavy metal but also felt like a classic 50s rocker, the kind of frenetic song that Little Richard would have recorded. That evocation was likely no accident — Fogerty was a big fan of the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer. “Little Richard was the greatest rock and roll singer of all time,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was a kid when his records were coming out, so I got to experience them in real time.”

All those great early Little Richard songs — “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly” — were recorded and released by Art Rupe’s Specialty Records, which, according to Forbes, signed the performer to an exploitative and woefully unfair contract, initially paying him $50 for the rights to songs with a half-cent royalty for each copy sold. Specialty controlled “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” and in October 1971, the company felt that CCR’s “Travelin’ Band” was such an egregious rip-off of its Little Richard song that it sued Fogerty for copyright infringement. (The case was later dropped.)

After Creedence Clearwater Revival ended in 1972, John Fogerty released a couple of albums, but neither sold well. In 1976, Fogerty put together Hoodoo, but the single, “You Got the Magic,” tanked. Asylum Records opted to shelve the album instead, finding it lackluster. Fogerty had to deal with that personal failure while still dealing with lingering issues over what he felt were unfair deals with Saul Zaentz and Fantasy Records, CCR’s label. Between 1975 and 1985, what should have been prime years for his solo career, Fogerty didn’t make any albums at all. According to The Los Angeles Times, he didn’t start recording again until 1983, then deleted an entire album because he thought it was sub-par. In 1985, Fogerty unleashed Centerfield, where he worked out some demons — the songs “Mr. Greed” and “Zanz Kant Danz” were both about Zaentz, although a slander lawsuit forced him to change the latter to “Vanz Kant Danz.”

The bitterness persisted. According to Billboard, Fogerty didn’t start playing his CCR songs live until 2004. A year later, he signed a new contract with, ironically, Fantasy Records. Zaentz was out of the picture, as the label had sold to Concord Music Group (per The New York Times). In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Fogerty revealed that the full rights to all of his songs will revert to him around the year 2025.

“Run Through the Jungle” was one of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s biggest hits. The swampy, bluesy song hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970, one of the band’s last successes before splitting up in 1972. The rights to the song weren’t controlled by John Fogerty or CCR as a whole, however, but by Fantasy Records and its owner, Saul Zaentz. He and Fogerty butted heads over the years in a long battle, which took a strange twist after 1985. That year, Fogerty released “The Old Man Down the Road,” which hit the Billboard Top 10, the only time a Fogerty solo song would reach such heights. That might be because it reminded millions of listeners of classic CCR tunes. One man who found it particularly familiar was Zaentz. According to Mental Floss, Zaentz thought “The Old Man Down the Road” bore a striking, undeniable similarity to “Run Through the Jungle.” As he owned the rights to that song, he filed a federal lawsuit against Fogerty for copyright infringement, which put the rock star in the cosmically weird situation of being accused of plagiarizing a song he wrote in another song he wrote.

During the two-week trial in 1988, Fogerty took the stand, wielding his guitar to show judge and jury that while the two songs were similar, it was only because they were representative of his signature musical style. After two hours of deliberation, the jury ruled in Fogerty’s favor.

Not only did John Fogerty loathe and resent Fantasy Records boss Saul Zaentz, he loathed and resented his former Creedence Clearwater Revival bandmates, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. That deep, long-standing animosity has precluded Creedence Clearwater Revival from reuniting since its 1972 split. (All four musicians played together again just once, in 1980, at Tom Fogerty’s wedding.)

John Fogerty was given a chance to let bygones be bygones in 1993, when the incoming president, Bill Clinton, asked Creedence to play at the inauguration. Fogerty passed on the high-profile opportunity. “I said, ‘I’m not playing as a band with Creedence. I don’t play with those guys. We will never play as a band again,'” John recalled in his memoir, Fortunate Son (via Rolling Stone).

John is a man of his word, CCR still hasn’t played music together, but the surviving original members did all share a stage later in 1993, for speeches, when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But when it came time for the customary performance for the newly inducted act, Fogerty played with rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson — he’d prevented Cook and Clifford from taking the stage.