Cajun Moon, I Got the Same Old Blues, Call Me the Breeze and If You're Ever in Oklahoma
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Track:Cajun Moon and Others
Coincidence or not, the phrase "laid back" crept into common use right around the time of J.J. Cale's first album. Nearly everyone but Cale missed the point. "Laid back" wasn't a synonym for "slow"; it was a frame of mind that applied to any tempo. A fast song could be "laid back" as easily as a slow one. It all hinged on the approach. Cale arrived at a time when entire sides of LP's were consumed with suites, and the suites had paragraph-length titles. In the midst of this, Cale took his cue from old pop records which said what they had to say in three minutes. His concession to the new world order was to stretch the occasional song to four minutes. It wasn't that he couldn't play all those notes or write a 20-minute suite; he just couldn't see the point. In a world given to excess, Cale made a virtue of economy. Even his LP titles had expressed much in a few words. Naturally, Really, Okie.
Cale seems proud that he has prevented himself from becoming tremendously famous. "I stopped a lot of people who wanted to shove me into the real big time, " he said recently. "Your ego wants to say, 'Hey, I'm somebody, man,' but I knew there were many days when I just wanted to be John Cale." Someone he knew from school painted him as a sly raccoon on his first album jacket. He slips out at night and makes a record. You catch him sometimes in your headlights, then he's gone. Back to the lake. Back to the desert. Back to the trailer park.
This is a 4 song collage just to give the new comer a feel for JJ's vibe
Enjoy
Comments (8)
Very cool vibe. Interesting that he didn't want to be "real big time"...
I found that MOST fascinating about him. "This is who I am and I just love making music"
Amen!!
Oh yeah for sure!!!
I have yet to find an LP by him that wasn't all good. He's mastered the Zen of laid-back bluesy rock.
You catch him sometimes in the headlights, then he's gone. I love that and his music
Cale snuck in and out of my experiences over the years. Friends always had his recordings, and I never felt compelled - yet always soothed by his tones. Love the sampler!
JJ Cale has quite a catalog of great songs, some famous ascovers but most of his best lie there like gold nuggets waiting for the explorer of American Roots music. But no museum piece is Mr Cale...his blues ain't a chair to admire and view from afar....his blues are a chair to sit on.
I was just re-reading your comment and I was wondering - what is an ascover?