Ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford has just released an archival album called For All the Money in the World that he recorded in 1986 with then-Greg Kihn Band bassist/songwriter Steve Wright, who died in 2017.
Clifford tells ABC Audio that the project came about when Wright, who grew up in the same town, El Cerrito, California, looked him up and suggested they write together.
“[I]t was very easy and very productive, so we kept doing that,” Clifford recalls. “And then we decided…we’ve got material and have a formula for having more material and it’d be nice to have a band to put it out there.”
Cosmo says they enlisted various Bay Area musicians for the sessions, many of whom also played with the Greg Kihn Band around that time, including guitarists Joe Satriani, Greg Douglass and Jimmy Lyon, and keyboardist Pat Mosca.
Rounding things out was a talented singer named Keith England whom, Clifford notes, had “a great rock ‘n’ roll voice.”
For All the Money in the World is an 11-track collection that offers a mix of catchy pop and rock songs.
Clifford says he loves the title track because it features a shuffle beat, noting, “Shuffles are just…fun. You can’t help but move to a shuffle.”
Cosmo also reveals that he sent the album to Steve Miller, who singled out the driving rock tune “She Told Me So” as his favorite.
Clifford says Miller told him, “[Y]ou guys ripped the roof off the barn with [that song].'”
According to Cosmo, Clifford/Wright “had the components of…something pretty special,” but the album was shelved when Wright’s lack of interest in playing clubs brought the project “to a close.”
Thirty-five years later, the album finally has been released.
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