Fantasy Records Vinyl, CDs & Cassettes

Fantasy Records was founded in 1949 in San Francisco by two brothers who ran a record-pressing plant and decided to take a shot at the label side of the business. The early years were dedicated to jazz, Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader, Vince Guaraldi, and a generation of West Coast players who were making some of the most inventive music of the postwar era. Fantasy was also the first label to record Lenny Bruce's live performances, which tells you something about the kind of operation they were running.

The label changed dramatically in 1967 when Saul Zaentz took ownership and brought with him a Bay Area band he was managing called Creedence Clearwater Revival. What CCR did over the following five years under the Fantasy banner remains one of the most concentrated runs of hit-making in rock history. Bad Moon Rising, Proud Mary, Fortunate Son, Green River, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Lodi, the whole catalog, all of it recorded and released here. The band broke up in 1972 but the catalog never stopped selling, and the Fantasy CCR releases remain definitive.

Fantasy was eventually acquired by Concord Records in 2004, bringing its catalog under one of the more serious independent umbrellas in the business. What's in this collection spans the full arc, from the cool West Coast jazz of the Fifties through the swamp rock that put the label on the map worldwide. However, you found your way here, there's likely something worth your time.