Blue Monday
February 18, 2008
To call J.J. Cale a master of understatement hardly begins to touch on the tightly reined-in quality of his music. Personally, I find a little of his stuff goes a very long way, but he’s built up a tremendous following over the decades, and his admirers include Eric Clapton, whose covers of Cale standards like “After Midnight” and “Cocaine” are among the highlights of his career. The two just won a Grammy for their collaboration, The Road to Escondido, so here’s a Cale performance that I think displays his low-key approach in its best light.
