A Marketing Ploy Featuring.. Creedence Clearwater Revival

This is a story about a savvy marketing strategy that was conceived by a management team of a well-recognized record distributor. It takes place back in the days of the independent distribution battles and their territorial disputes. Now, as you probably know, the mention of an independent distribution battle or territorial dispute might not pop-up on the radar screen as an every day mainstream topic, but wait till you hear this doozy. This noteworthy account can be special to Pop-Culture and music enthusiast as it entails the release of a legendary album by one of the all-time greats of Rock N' Roll, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

If we turn back the clock to those glory years of rock, 1969 & 1970, this gambit takes place upon the release of Creedence Clearwater Revival's third album, "Green River." The group's previous two albums sold like hot cakes and established the band as the most popular rock band in America. Their record label, Fantasy Records, was based out of San Francisco and riding a wave of success created by this legendary Bay area band. Although Fantasy was not considered a major label at the time, CCR's popularity had catapulted the label into recent prominence. During this era most record labels depended upon the services of the independent record distributors to market their product. These distributors, or 'indies' as they were known, were located throughout the country and provided the regional muscle to merchandise product for the labels. A vast majority of the distributors were locally owned and not necessarily linked together other than housing many of the same record labels. As a matter of fact, and on many occasions, some of the indies would compete among themselves for business from the same accounts. At this particular level there was considerable revenue to be generated especially if you were the exclusive source providing the sale of a highly anticipated record album. And that's where this story of competitiveness begins.

The scene opens with two marketing mavericks, Hot Line Record Distributor's co-owner Jim Crudgington and General Manager, Dwight "Moon" Mullins, as they were discussing a game plan to capitalize on CCR's forthcoming summer release. Hot Line was a highly visible distributor located in Memphis, TN and serviced many Mid-South record stores, Five-and-Dimes, Head-Shops and Mom-and-Pop music shops. Hot Line's circle of influence combined with their aggressive strategies on Creedence's first two albums had connected the wholesale distributor with many of the retail stores in lieu of receiving this monumental new release. However, as with many successful campaigns, several of the regional distributors got wind of Hot Line's exclusive representation of Fantasy Records and aspired to get a piece of the action.

Word got back to Jim Crudgington that the smell of money was in the air as key accounts within his own back yard were being solicited for this album. Supported by these actions, Crudgington had to move fast. The good news was, Hot Line's long-standing association with Fantasy had established the distributor with a substantial credit line giving the company the green light to proceed with the status quo. On the other hand, any newcomers had to go through due-process by producing reputable financial sources to back them before engaging in the business at hand. This was common practice in the music industry and similar to producing a credit application for an newly established corporation. But in this case it required a considerable collateral backing to proceed in this agreement. Case being, if you wanted to participate in the distribution of this label, you better have strong financial backing. After all, Fantasy Records had developed a worthy catalog of artists and had sold tons of product. Plus, Creedence Clearwater Revival had become the hottest ticket item in America.

As the release date rapidly approached, Crudgington and Mullins had finalized their strategic plan. Supported with good timing and keen savvy, the twosome came up with the innovative idea to travel to the pressing plant that serviced the entire region. Stay with me here. Here's how it all came down. First, Crudgington and Mullins would journey by commercial airline to the city of Terra Harte, Indiana where the pressing plant was located. Second, they had made advance reservations to rent a huge 35 foot U-Haul truck where they would drive this vehicle to the pressing plant and back-up the truck to the loading dock. At that location they would time their arrival and wait for the precise moment that the plant would complete the pressing of the very first 25,000 copies of Creedence's "Green River" album. Third, their advance coordination with all parties allowed them to fully load the U-Haul truck to it's capacity while the phonographs records were freshly sealed in their album jackets. The unmarred vinyl were so pristine that you could still feel the warmth generated from the pressing process. Now that's a hot record.

Hold on, we're not through yet. Listen to this; Next, old "Crudgie" and "Moon" had alerted every single record shop in the region that they were in transit and on their way. Every one-stop record distributor, retail outlet and even the water-bed stores selling records were telephoned that Hot Line was coming to their town. This long extensive trip down the "Green River" highway featured literally dozens and dozens of cities and towns with stores anxiously awaiting their arrival with open arms. Some of the stores were actually serviced in the middle of the night as to accommodate the time frame allotted to them. Every friggin' music account in the region was drop-shipped from this rolling record distributor. The tires on the U-Haul were burning-up the highway and reaching stores located in Southern Indiana, Eastern Illinois, central Kentucky and throughout the state of Tennessee. All were serviced within a 52 hour period while within the next few days retail customers were standing in line and waiting at the counters to purchase this new Creedence Clearwater Revival album.

Back on the home front, when the good people working at the competing record distributors heard about this overnight caper, their mouths dropped open in disbelief. It appeared that while they were napping and dozing off in the middle of the night, cha-ching cha-ching was taking place in their own back yard. This all happened so quickly and without advance notice that some of those distributors in question actually still had their pen and applications in hand while delving in the process. Fantasy Records would go on to authorize several of those distributors awaiting approval but when the regional accounts were solicited for new business by their sales people, they were told their stores had already been serviced of product courtesy of Hot Line Distributors. Several days later when Hot Line's record buyer, June Colbert, contacted Fantasy Records to re-order a second allotment on the "Green River" album, a dumbfounded customer rep replied, "My God lady, what happened to the first 25,000 you ordered?"

The "Green River" album shot up the Billboard charts to the number #1 top position and achieved multi-platinum status. The album also produced multiple hit singles including "Green River" and "Bad Moon Rising" both peaking the singles chart at the number #2 position. Now in the 21st Century, and forty years later, all of these songs are still featured daily over the popular airwaves of modern music channels.

The moral of the story is, it seems guys like this no longer exist. Guys who roll-up their sleeves while facing a challenge and can not be denied. The truth of the matter is, this marketing scheme was not about spending a ton of money, it was about making a ton of money. Now days, huge advertising budgets combined with an entire regiment of workers would have been deployed into the region in an attempt to take care of these matters. But not with these two guys. They were just a couple of marketing mavericks doing what they do. They don't make'em like that anymore.


This story is dedicated to the memory of Jim Crudington (center) and Dwight Mullins (in rear). RIP.

A companion story about Creedence Clearwater Revival can be resourced by clicking-on; "The Stakes Are Rasied"

Copyright 2010 (c) Phillip Rauls - Rauls Media LLC - All rights reserved