It was really a bummer when I learned of the passing of guitar whiz and songwriting genius JJ Cale. There's a pretty good chance you never heard of JJ Cale, who was 74 and died of a heart attack in California. But here's someone you might have heard of: Eric Clapton. Clapton loved JJ Cale and considered him his greatest musical influence. Cale wrote two of Clapton's biggest, monster hits: "After Midnight" and "Cocaine." Cale also wrote arguably the best song ever recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Call Me The Breeze."
I got turned on to JJ Cale about 25 years ago, when a newspaper co-worker and "music bud" introduced me to him. He gave me a few cassette tapes with the words "JJ Cale" scrawled on them. I punched them into my car player and was like, "whoa, how come I've never heard of this guy!" He was GREAT! I just couldn't get enough of this guy. Why wasn't he that famous, I wondered? Well, here's the thing: JJ Cale was not quite rockabilly; he was not quite country; he was not quite rock; he was not quite blues. He was an awesome blend of all that. For whatever reason, that sound never played well on mainstream radio. But, man oh man, could JJ Cale write a catchy tune. And, in reading the many obits and remembrances on the Internet, apparently he had no issues with toiling in the relative obscurity of that musical genre he helped create, Americana. He also had no problem walking to his mailbox and collecting the royalty checks from the monster hits he wrote for the mega-artists.
At long last in the past decade, JJ Cale got his due. He put together an amazing album with his protege Clapton called "Road to Escondido." I think the album won a Grammy for best blues album, and voila, he got his fame. Those old cassette tapes are long gone now, but maybe I'll have to use that $10 iTunes gift card I got around Father's Day and get me some old JJ Cale, head down to the river, and enjoy the greatest musician you probably never heard of.
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