If only because of his imitators–he's the man who gave Dire Straits their guitar sound, for example–J.J. Cale ought to have a higher profile than he does. When he's good, there's no one better at evoking the razor sharpness of that moment when you come out of a peaceful sleep into a pervasive sense of indefinable, unnamable danger. And because his emotional reticence feels genuine, it conveys a sense of experience lived in and brooded over that makes Tom Petty's mystery-man ploys seem callow. Among Cale's half-dozen albums, there's at least one classic: 1972's Naturally, which turned the violence and humor of Southern back roads into something as spooky to the listener as it was to the performer.

"Carry On," Shades' opening cut, captures Cale's tight-lipped individualism perfectly–the tune is sinuously loping, ominous and hushed all at once. But nothing else here pushes past that fine beginning: when the artist doesn't wake up feeling paranoid, it seems he can hardly find a reason to get out of bed at all. There's the promising idea of casting "Mama Don't" as a piece of under-your-breath menace (which unfortunately peters out into good-timeyness halfway through) and a nicely insinuating undercurrent to many of the vocals. Yet too much of the record sounds like an atmospheric exercise in Cale's familiar freight-hopping manner, meandering along smokily until it dissipates into the vague jazz tootlings of "Cloudy Day," the instrumental finale.

Shades is solid, pleasant work: even at low throttle, J.J. Cale has more edgy style than most musicians. But I hope something happens soon to make him feel nervous and threatened again. Unlocking the obsessiveness lurking beneath the lazy calm would seem to be the answer. (RS 350)

TOM CARSON