A hand-tooled smile of resilience — “Hearts of Stone” is John Fogerty’s three-minute reminder that some old songs feel like new courage when you sing them with your own two hands.
Start with the anchors that keep memory honest. “Hearts of Stone” is an R&B standard written by Eddie Ray and Rudy Jackson, first cut in 1954 by the Jewels and made famous the same year by Otis Williams & the Charms (R&B No. 1, Pop Top 15) and, in early 1955, by the Fontane Sisters (U.S. Pop No. 1). John Fogerty revived the tune in 1973 on his all-covers debut as The Blue Ridge Rangers, playing every instrument himself and producing the sessions. Released as a single that spring—backed with “Somewhere Listening (For My Name)”—Fogerty’s version climbed to No. 37 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 35 in Canada, a sturdy radio showing that followed the Top-20 success of his earlier Rangers single, “Jambalaya (On the Bayou).”
A few particulars make this cut more than a casual cover. Fogerty tracked the album at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley and, true to the Rangers conceit, sang, picked, and drummed it all himself; engineers Russ Gary and Skip Shimmin helped bottle the sound. Issued on Fantasy in April 1973, the 45 felt like a craftsman’s calling card: two minutes and change of bright, ringing economy, with nothing in the way of the song’s plainspoken hook. The album itself reached No. 47 in the U.S., but the singles did the talking: “Jambalaya” to announce the project, “Hearts of Stone” to prove it had legs.
The backstory matters because of what Fogerty was choosing in that moment. After the storm and legend of Creedence, he came back without his name on the jacket, hiding in plain sight behind a fictitious band. That humility is audible here. Where the Charms pleaded and the Fontanes soared, Fogerty lopes—a backbeat that walks instead of struts, Telecaster phrases that glow rather than bark, and a vocal that smiles through the gravel. He doesn’t out-sing history; he joins it, and in doing so he reminds older ears what first made this song a keeper: the sweet-and-salty relief of telling a stubborn heart to toughen up and carry on.
If you grew up with early-’50s radio floating through kitchens and car dashboards, the lyric is as familiar as a family saying. It’s a postcard from the school of everyday stoicism: hearts of stone—that’s how you survive the slights and sorrows love hands out. The brilliance of Fogerty’s 1973 performance is how domestic he makes that lesson feel. No orchestra, no grand key change; just a small band built from one man’s patience, laid under a tune that already knew how to comfort people who had learned to keep their chin up. In that restraint, the song becomes less an oldies revival than a fresh coat of courage.
Then there are the charts—the quiet evidence that the public heard what he was up to. In the U.S. the single reached No. 37, while Canadian radio carried it to No. 35; together with “Jambalaya” (U.S. No. 16; Canada Top 15), those peaks gave Fogerty two Top-40s in his first post-CCR season and helped the Rangers LP settle into its Top-50 album berth. For a record that arrived under a borrowed band name and an old songbook, that’s not nostalgia; that’s trust earned.
Listen closely and you’ll hear how the arrangement breathes. The drums sit low and sure, like a porch step that’s held a thousand afternoons. The guitars chime with a West-Coast brightness that never crowds the vocal. When the title line lands, Fogerty doesn’t sell it; he states it, the way an older neighbor might—half advice, half confession. And because he tracked every part, the groove feels like a single heartbeat: steady, unhurried, exactly as confident as it needs to be.
Of course, “Hearts of Stone” carries its own long shadow. The song’s authors, Eddie Ray and Rudy Jackson, watched it travel from a small Los Angeles-area R&B label to national pop and country charts in the mid-’50s, gathering versions by the Charms, the Fontanes, Connie Francis and others. Fogerty’s Top-40 cut in 1973 is part of that lineage, a respectful hand on a well-used shoulder. He keeps the melody’s doo-wop bones intact, trims any period frill, and lets the chorus do the work it’s always done: tell a wounded listener that toughness isn’t cruelty—it’s a way to keep showing up.
Return to it now—needle, stream, or memory—and it lands like a short, good-natured pep talk. The singer sounds like a man who has been knocked around by the business and the years, and who still believes a simple groove and a true voice can right a listing day. That belief is why this little single holds up. John Fogerty’s “Hearts of Stone” doesn’t try to outshine its elders; it polishes them, then sends them back into the light where they belong—bright enough to help you through another afternoon.