Jesse Welles Says 'It May Take a Couple Years' to 'Really Understand' the Weight of Working with John Fogerty (Exclusive)

Jesse Welles is still processing nan profound quality of his narration pinch nan legendary John Fogerty.

The "War Isn't Murder" singer, 32, tells PEOPLE astatine nan 2025 Americana Honors & Awards that teaming up pinch Fogerty, nan lead vocalist of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is an "unbelievable" feat that he will request to return immoderate clip to process.

"It was ... I cognize he didn't intend for it to beryllium this way, but it was fundamentally like, here's a instruction connected really to play my opus from nan feline who wrote it," Welles shares of performing "Have You Ever Seen nan Rain?" pinch Fogerty during a astonishment duet astatine Nashville's Exit/In connected Sept. 9.

The erstwhile recorded and released an acclaimed screen of nan opus pinch Mt. Joy successful 2024, and first joined Fogerty successful a unrecorded trim of nan way a time earlier during nan BMI Troubadour Awards connected Sept. 8.

"So it's ace duper good. Also, I don't deliberation it is really group successful yet, because it is conscionable kinda unbelievable to person John correct there," Welles adds of their unrecorded performances. "It whitethorn return a mates years for maine to really understand nan afloat weight of it, but to person his blessing, I don't cognize really to put it into words."

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During nan 2025 Americana Honors & Awards, Fogerty presented Welles pinch nan free reside award, honoring his committedness to relevant, resonant storytelling done his music, which often focuses connected Welles' mentation of hot-button existent events and societal criticisms. At nan extremity of nan event, Welles, on pinch nan remainder of nan evening's nominees, came together pinch Fogerty for a medley of Creedence Clearwater Revival classics, “Up Around nan Bend,” “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” and “Proud Mary.”

Welles, a student of some stone legends specified arsenic Fogerty and people heroes specified arsenic Woody Guthrie, John Prine and Bob Dylan, recognizes a lineage betwixt his activity and those who came earlier him, but is patient successful reminding each that his position is uniquely his own.

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"My formative years were spent listening to these folks for illustration Woody Guthrie. I consciousness for illustration those are nan ones I ever get compared to, a batch of John Prine too," he shares, but quickly adds, "Those shoes are excessively large to fill."

The vocalist continues to note, "People comparison you to what they've seen before, what's familiar. But it doesn't make you nan same. [While I was making] stone and roll, everybody ever called maine ... Kurt Cobain, you know, and it's conscionable group grasping astatine straws. Even Bob — Bob Dylan isn't Woody Guthrie immoderate much than I'm Bob Dylan. These are each one-of-a-kind individuals."

Of nan inspiration down his thought-provoking lyricism arsenic a whole, Welles shares, "The ingredients you sewage cook nan barroom you get, and correct now successful nan oven is simply a very unusual group of ingredients and a batch of situations happening simultaneously wherever nan outcomes are unpredictable."