Stay Around

Description

Stay Around is the first posthumous release of works by beloved songwriter, guitarist, and singer JJ Cale. Current single Stay Around, a slow-burning love letter of a song, follows the debut single Chasing You, which Rolling Stone called a simmering blues rocker anchored by Cales plucky guitar and tender vocals.

Stay Around was compiled by those closest to Cale his widow, musician Christine Lakeland Cale, and friend and longtime manager, Mike Kappus.

Discussing Stay Around in the albums liner notes, Christine writes, It. Moves. Me. Takes me right to another place when I hear it. Another magical mood captured in his home studio in Valley Center.

For the first time in a decade, listeners will be moved by a new collection of unreleased Cale songs, a feat thats possible due to Cales modus operandi: often Cale would reserve outtakes from one album for later release on another. In compiling Stay Around, Christine pored over songs, both studio and home recordings, that the public had never heard. The result is an album mixed and produced by Cale himself, left nearly untouched to leave, in Christines words, the Cale Factor. The only song not written by Cale is Christines My Baby Blues, the first song she and Cale cut as a four-piece combo in Bradleys Barn studio in 1977, the year they met.

Cale spent his career as an under-the-radar-giant (the New York Times) and influenced musicians as wide ranging as Neil Young (who wrote in his autobiography, J. J.s guitar playing is a huge influence on me. His touch is unspeakable. I am stunned by it.); Beck (who, speaking to the L.A. Times, referred to his effortlessnessrestraint and underplaying as very powerful); Eric Clapton (who, in his autobiography, called Cale one of the most important artists in the history of rock, quietly representing the greatest asset his country has ever had); and so many more.

Cale cut his teeth during the 50s, playing guitar in bars in Oklahoma alongside fellow natives David Gates of Bread and Leon Russell, and is credited as one of the key figures in creating the laid-back Tulsa sound. He managed to gather a loyal fan following and the admiration of some of the most revered rock musicians whilein the unwavering desire to lead a normal lifeeluding fame, and it was via other artists recording and performing his songs that he became best known. Eric Clapton recorded After Midnight, Cocaine, and several other Cale originals, his admiration culminating with the pairs Road To Escondido collaboration in 2006, which earned Cale his first Grammy, for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and his first RIAA Certified Gold Award.

Among the many others who covered Cales songs are Jerry Garcia, Captain Beefheart, Spiritualized, Beck, Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Mayer, Bryan Ferry, Santana, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, The Band, Widespread Panic, Freddie King, Phish, Waylon Jennings, Maria Muldaur, Bobby Blue Bland, Hiss The Golden Messenger, Dan Auerbach, and Lee Fields, to name just a few.