Not to long ago, someone mentioned to me the movie ‘The Big Lebowski’.

You know the one. It’s the movie where ‘The Dude’ - an easy going hippy bum, gets mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, has his rug ruined by pee and seeks restitution with his PTSD suffering friend.

Anyhoo, there’s a few scenes throughout the movie showing ‘_The Dude_’ is driving around in a beat up old car listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival.

For those that don’t know, CCR were a late 60’s rock band. They’ve also been described as swamp rock which to me, is probably one of the best names for a sub genre. Sure, John Fogerty probably wouldn’t know a swamp if he drove into it, but damn he wrote some hooks. To find our more about CCR just ask your folks. CCR have had huge success for fair few radio friendly songs throughout the 70s, but don’t let that put you off.

To be honest though…, I used to absolutely hate this band.

I’m not sure if it’s because my dad used to listen to them, or because as a teen a favourite ‘pop punk’ band at the time (Lagwagon) covered them and I thought it was crap, or because way back in primary school, my mates and I used to sing ‘Down On The Corner’ in the playground because of this clay animation video from the ABC. Who knows?!

Anyway, to get back on track - I was watching The Big Lebowski and as I said there’s the odd scene where he’s driving around listening to CCR. Although the song was “_Lookin’ out my back door_” (not really a favourite), I actually thought it sounded cool. So this led me to check out more.

I ended up just going straight for the The Ultimate Collection. I wasn’t obsessing over them at this point, so I just wanted to skip through as many tracks as I could in a short time.

There is actually some killer tracks for those of you that like me, are fans of bluesy guitar riffs.

The first one to blow my mind was the cover of Marvin Gaye’s ‘_I heard it through the grapevine_’. The full length version is 11 minutes and 4 seconds long with pretty much 8 minutes of that is just a swampy blues jam. If there’s one song you listen to - it has to be this one.

Another track that absolutely rules is ‘_Pagan Baby_’. From the initial cheeky country intro riff - into the dirty swamp breakdown riff, this will have any blues guitar nerd pumped.

Carrying on with the swamp theme we have ‘_Run Through The Jungle_’. A song about the proliferation of guns in the states. This song is delivered by bluesy guitar and harmonic. It’s really a long track - it kind of jams for a bit and gets the hell out of there. I think that adds it’s awesomeness.

The last couple of tracks I’d recommend would be the anti-war rock anthem ‘_Fortunate Son_’, the psychedelic jam ’_Susie Q_’ and the awesome cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkin’s ‘_I put a spell on you_’.

If you’re a fan of guitar and/or blues, you’re going to dig this. Don’t be put of by the hippies walking around in their tie-dyed CCR shirts preaching love for one another - there’s plenty of rockin’ blues riffs in here that’ll have you dangerously wailing air guitars in peoples faces.

I think it’s awesome that a movie’s soundtrack has lead me to discover another awesome band. As for the movie itself - well … it was alright.