“Which one’s JJ?”

There are those records you can slip to someone like a secret handshake, knowing with complete confidence there’s no way they won’t make the love connection.

When I first heard JJ Cale’s Naturally, it hit me like some long-lost friend drifting in from the cosmos—or maybe just Oklahoma, which might as well be another planet.

Naturally was one of the few things everyone in the Green On Red van could agree on. I used to listen to it in the dark with Stephie. Music brought us together. For a while there it was all I listened to.

After a gig not all that long ago (Eighteen months ago? Eighteen years ago?), the sound man put it on and let it play straight through sides one and two (for a total of 27 minutes or whatever). And after a fairly unrewarding night of humping gear and playing to a sparse crowd on a rainy Wednesday somewhere out there in the Midwest, that record floated through the room like a rescue mission. Picked my mood right up.

Another time—Louisiana, St. Francisville— not 25 miles from Angola prison. I remember it pouring out of some cabin after three straight days of rain. Air thick. Crickets going at it. The major-seventh ooze of “Magnolia” mixing with the humidity and the smell of wet pine. Beautiful. One of those moments you want to go on forever.

I was getting ready to head into the studio—last week, actually—to work on some new songs and I put it on for inspiration. I’ve learned a few tricks about making records along the way. There are always tricks. But this one… this JJ Cale record stays a mystery. How the hell did he do it? Maybe it’s because JJ engineered his own stuff. Like Prince. Recording that vocal all alone in the dark. Maybe there’s no trick at all. Whatever the case, it’s a masterpiece. Thirty some odd minutes of pure, effortless greatness. The songs are short—demo-short. Like postcards from some outsider genius. Sometimes he buries the guitar and vocal low in the mix—makes you lean in. Sometime it’s crackling loud. Like the wah guitar on Crazy Mama [Praise be Mac Gayden]. Sonic abstract-expressionist stuff. In some ways what he really did with Naturally was lift up the whole record-making process to high art. JJ just may have been the OG sonic auteur.

Me, Stephanie, and Roly saw him at the Great American Music Hall ages ago. He and his band were up there on stage practically in the pitch black dark. I remember someone whispering over my shoulder, “Which one’s JJ?”

Buy a copy of Naturally for yourself if you haven’t already. Hell, buy a copy for everyone you love.

Okay, thanks for being here. Got to pack now for Europe. I’m going back on tour, don’t you know. Did I ever get OFF tour?

Yours,

-CP

PS: JJ’s mailing address through the ’70s and ’80s? A trailer park near Disneyland—right there in the heart of Orange County, hiding in plain sight. They say he didn’t have a phone, either. Didn’t stop him. His gal Christine Lakeland might have had a phone— Christine, a hell of a singer and guitarist herself—would roll her RV up next to his for a while. And when they weren’t out playing JJ Cale gigs, she might head off for her own shows in Alaska, Idaho, or some half-abandoned ski resort in Colorado. Pretty cool.