Eric Clapton has paid tribute to the musician he calls "a beacon", as he releases The Breeze, an album honouring the guitarist and singer-songwriter JJ Cale.
Cale died aged 74 on July 26 2013, and that his profile became as high as it did was due in no small part to Clapton, who recorded what became two of Cale’s best-known songs, After Midnight and Cocaine, and took them both to No1. In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton called him “one of the most important artists in the history of rock, quietly representing the greatest asset his country has ever had”.
In a new interview published today by AP, Clapton talked about how Cale helped him out of a troubled period in the Seventies, when his life was blighted by drug addiction and personal difficulties. Clapton, 69, said: "I went into that dark period in my life and was just absent, and about that time some of JJ's early stuff was coming out. I definitely was trying to shake off this guitar legend thing, which I thought was so plebeian. It was such a pedestrian way of looking at things. I didn't want anything to do with that. I didn't want anything to do with this heavy metal s--- that was going on. I can't stand the noise. I wanted to kind of see the virtuosity, I wanted to get back to fundamentals, and he was a fundamentalist for sure. And so he was my beacon."
Cale's music continues to inspire Clapton and he says he came up with the idea for the 16-song The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale during a 12-hour flight to Cale's funeral. After discussing the idea at the funeral with Don White, one of the first band leaders to hire Cale, he decided to invite White to record a song for the album. Once White was on board, Clapton brought in other musical friends of Cale, including Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler and John Mayer, with drummer Jim Keltner and bassist Nathan East serving as the rhythm section.
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Commented 17 Jun, 2022
another episode of #livetesting