JJ Cale: To Tulsa and Back : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

J.J. Cale's chooglin' blues and stinging Stratocaster has inspired musicians for more than three decades. Eric Clapton and Lynyrd Skynyrd turned his songs into chart-topping rock classics, he's been covered by legends such as Johnny Cash, and Widespread Panic introduced him to a generation of jam fans. Through it all, the Tulsa native rarely deviated from his trademark laidback groove, but on his first album since 1996's Guitar Man, Cale's singing and string-bending don't take center stage. His weathered voice is like a trail of cigarette smoke, often eclipsed by the prominent horn and keyboard arrangements. But Cale still delivers his messages loud and clear, bemoaning diminishing water resources on the deep bluesy "Stone River" (a song he wrote for the environmental legal defense fund EarthJustice that appeared on 1999's Fish-Tree-Water-Blues compilation), railing against George Bush on the mandolin-dotted "The Problem" ("The man in charge has got to go") and observing the tragedy of the "Homeless" ("I'm not a homeless man/I'm a gypsy") -- and that's when he's at his soulful best.