Roll on down the road

A few months back I went to see J.J. Cale with my friend Mark.  At the time, I only knew of him as the “guy who clapton covered” and not much else.  While waiting for the show to start we were watching what first seemed to be stage hands tuning the gear.  Soon we realized that it was the band itself and a short while later JJ Cale came out and fiddled with his gear to.  Without so much as an announcment or even the house lights dimming, the band kicked into song and the night got under way.  I really enjoyed the show even though I only knew one or two tracks.  I found myself grooving along with the rest of the crowd.  Since then I’ve picked up a lot of his back catalog and his latest release ”Roll On“.

While I was driving to southern Oregon to go camping two weeks back I played Roll On a couple of times.  Like a lot of Cale’s music, I unconsciously find my self grooving along with it.  This latest effort has a couple of weaker efforts on it but all in all it’s a strong album that I find myself putting in rotation more and more.  ”Down To Memphis” is probably my favorite stand out along with “Cherry Street”, “Who Knew” and “Roll On”.  Cale is often criticized for sounding the same with each release, I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing in his case because of his musical talent the changes are a lot more subtle.  With a band like say “The Cars”, after a while all their songs sounded like the same stale New Wave beat a few albums into their career, I don’t feel that way with Cale but of course I’m still very new to his sound so I may change my opinion in the future.