On the night of February 19, 1987, Taj Mahal and the Graffiti Band—featuring Jesse Ed Davis on guitar—were performing at the little ol' Palomino Club in North Hollywood. In the audience were George Harrison, Bob Dylan and John Fogerty, all of whom—you guessed it—found their way onstage as surprise guests.
Although the evening served as a mini-reunion for three of the musicians who performed at 1971's Concert for Bangladesh (Harrison, Dylan and Davis), the real story is the fact that Fogerty sang "Proud Mary" that night.
For the previous 15 years, Fogerty—the former frontman of Creedence Clearwater Revival—had refused to sing his own songs. Basically, he didn't want to make CCR's old label, Fantasy Records, any richer than it already was. When CCR broke up in 1972, they were still contractually obligated to Fantasy to produce more albums. To avoid paying the hefty contract-breaking fee, Fogerty gave Fantasy the copyright royalties to all of his songs. These include such classic-rock staples as "Born on the Bayou," "Proud Mary," "Fortunate Son," "Down on the Corner" and many more.
Queue the clip of Homer Simpson saying, "D'oh!"
So why did Fogerty decide to break his personal CCR embargo at the Palomino and sing "Proud Mary" for the first time in 15 years? The answer lies in his brief introduction to the song: “We’re gonna do this because Bob Dylan asked me to do this.” According to some sources, Dylan told Fogerty that he had to start singing "Proud Mary" again—or else people would “start thinking Ike and Tina Turner wrote it." Whatever the reason, no one's complaining.
Below, you can check out a video of the full band—Harrison, Dylan, Fogerty, Mark Shark, Bobby Tsukamoto, Gary Ray, Davis and Taj Mahal—playing Carl Perkins' "Matchbox" (which the Beatles recorded in 1964). Harrison sings a few verses and plays a Chuck Berry-style guitar solo.
Below that, you'll find a longer video that includes "Knock on Wood" (Fogerty), "In the Midnight Hour" (Fogerty), "Honey Don't" (Harrison), "Blue Suede Shoes" (Fogerty/Harrison), "Watching the River Flow" (Harrison), "Proud Mary" (Fogerty), "Johnny B. Goode" (Taj Mahal) and a whole lot more. Decent versions of "Peggy Sue" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" are in there somewhere.
It's especially interesting to watch Harrison sing Dylan's "Watching the River Flow"—Dylan-style—while Dylan is standing right next to him. Jesse Ed Davis, who played guitar on the original 1971 recording, got to reprise his guitar solo that night. Sadly, Davis died only one year later.
