J.J. Cale and Back 'To Tulsa and Back' album

"Yeah, they told me it's eight years since the last studio album. But it doesn't seem that long," he says, scratching his head and wondering where the time has gone.

Now the long wait is finally over and he's back with an immaculate and classic collection of new songs. 'To Tulsa And Back' (Sanctuary Records) is both different from what has gone before, and yet also reassuringly delivers
the familiar, hand-tooled, trademark sound that has made Cale a musical legend for more than 30 years.

Over his career Cale has harbored a healthy suspicion of change for the sake of it. The whims and caprices of fad and fashionability have left his timeless genius unmoved. But one fundamental change was forced upon him this
time around. He had initially planned that the follow-up to 1996's 'Guitar Man' would be recorded in Nashville with Audie Ashworth, who began producing Cale's records back in 1971 with 'Naturally,' the unforgettable debut that
included songs such as "After Midnight," "Call Me The Breeze," "Magnolia," and "Crazy Mama."

Cale and Ashworth continued working together over the years, setting up their own studio, Crazy Mama's, when Cale moved to Nashville in 1975. "We were going to do the record like we did in the old days," Cale says. "Two old friends sitting around talking music and playing songs." Sadly, Ashworth passed away before they could start work and Cale dedicated 2001's 'J.J. Cale Live' album to his old friend's memory.

So which direction to go for his first studio album in eight years? Cale - who these days lives in the southern California desert - decided to go back to his roots. Back to Tulsa, the town in Oklahoma where he was born but left decades ago.

There he hired a small studio owned by drummer and old friend David Teagarden and looked up the good ol' boys he had grown up with. "I drove down there and we found all the guys I had played with in bars when we were young fellas. We spent a week tracking in the studio, but it was like a social thing with barbecues and stuff, as much as a recording session. I played with some of these guys 40 years ago and I tell you, I don't think
there's anyone on this record who's under 60 years old."

The result is a wonderfully warm, rhythmic and relaxed record that preserves the unique down-home flavor that has come to define J.J. Cale's music. That, of course, is exactly how his fans want it. Indeed, there would
probably be a riot if Cale tried to change now. So what is it about the Tulsa scene and the sound that came out of it that Cale's music has come to embody?

"I don't think there is a Tulsa sound as such. It's just individuals," he says. "But I know what you mean. In western Oklahoma you've got a lot of country music. Then in eastern Oklahoma, it's closer to the Mississippi and
you've got more blues musicians. In Tulsa we got influenced by both and there's some jazz in there too. So I guess that's what made my sound."

Whatever its origins, the Cale sound has profoundly influenced artists such as Eric Clapton and Dire Straits, and his songs have been covered by everyone from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, and the Allman Brothers to Johnny
Cash, The Band, Santana, Captain Beefheart, and Bryan Ferry.

Cale began playing in Tulsa clubs and bars as a guitarist in the 1950s. By the age of 17 he was leading his own band, Johnny Cale and the Valentines, before he moved in 1964 to Los Angeles. There he worked as a studio engineer
and played with fellow Tulsa ?migr?s such as Leon Russell and the musicians who would go onto become Delaney & Bonnie's band, and subsequently play with Derek and the Dominos.

Then in 1970, Clapton recorded "After Midnight," a song Cale had written in
the mid-60s. At the time he was back in Tulsa, laying low. Not for long. Clapton's lavish praise, expressed in every interview he gave, soon thrust the modest and self-effacing Cale into the glare of a spotlight he has never
really sought or desired.

Cale was grateful for the recognition. But the notion of celebrity horrified him and continues to do so to this day. "I'm a guitarist and a songwriter and I got lucky when Clapton heard one of my songs," he says. "I'm not a showbiz kind of guy. I had the passion to do music as much as anybody. But I
never wanted to be the patsy up front. And I still don't want to be famous."

Clapton continues to be an enthusiastic champion, having since covered "Cocaine," "Travelin' Light," and "I'll Make Love To You Anytime." When Mojo Magazine asked recently which other musician he would most like to be, he answered Cale, calling him "one of the masters of the last three decades of music."

And so Cale has reluctantly had to grow accustomed to the attention throughout a long and successful solo career that has seen songs like "After Midnight," "Cocaine," "Call Me The Breeze," and "Crazy Mama" become rock'n'roll standards.

In 2002 he returned to the road after a long lay-off. "I hadn't played live for a while and so I started getting back into it slowly by going out solo," he recalls. "Then I added a drummer and then another guitar player. And by
the end all my friends were there and the band needed two tour busses."

Cale also found himself in demand with a new audience, supporting bands such as Widespread Panic on America's huge 'jam band' circuit. "Those guys make a three minute number last 15 minutes and everybody does a solo. But they
still need songs. How they discovered mine, I don't know. But they did. Then through the songs a whole new generation discovered me," he says with some bemusement.

After the tour, it seemed like a good idea to make a record. 'To Tulsa And Back' is the result and it's classic Cale. "I write songs when I've nothing else to do and I file them away. So I had plenty of 'em hanging around over the years," he says.

On songs such as "My Gal," "Chains Of Love," and "Blues For Mama," his subject matter remains much the same as it has always been. But other songs such as "Stone River," which he wrote for the environmental Earthjustice
campaign, and the sharply political "The Problem," find him addressing new concerns about the world in which we live. "You could say in my older years I've written a few more political and environmental songs," he says.

Timeless and enduring, J.J. Cale is back and sounding as fine as ever. Not that his music ever went away. After all, what's eight years between old friends?

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Tracklisting

J.J. Cale and Back - To Tulsa and Back