Music is a kind of magical thing, and you can't make magic every time, but you try. Every once in a while it has that magic, and the audience knows that. I probably miss it more than I hit it, but I think that's what all musicians try for.
J. J. Cale
I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.
I basically make my living writing songs, so I've been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It's a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.
People have heard my music, but all my famous songs were made famous by somebody else... But that was my goal.
People said my records were 'funky' and 'muddy,' but the truth is they were just demos.
When I sit down and play the guitar, I'm 20 years old again.
When Eric Clapton cut 'After Midnight,' he sold so many records and it was so big at the time, I decided that I would pursue the songwriting thing. I was 34 years old at that time. I'd been down the pike and back before I had any success at all.
I ain't got much to say.
When you get successful, the money comes in and pretty soon you've got to hire an accountant, you've got to get up early, and then you've got a day job.
I would never ever sing at all if I could get away with it. I had pitch problems, no range. So what I did was manipulate the sound... that way you couldn't tell that I wasn't very good.
I didn't really get any success till I was 30 years old. I played music when I was young fella, but I didn't really get any success till I was about 30 years old.
I'm an electronic manipulator. Most people think J.J. Cale, he's organic. There ain't nothing organic about me.
I'm a background person.
I'm basically a songwriter, man. Songwriters are down in the fine print, you know? And I really enjoy that.
Makin' records is one art form and playin' live is another. It's like the difference between makin' a movie and doin' theatre.
That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.
Send me the money and let the younger guys have the fame.
Sometimes the simplest forms of music are the hardest to play. Especially for musicians that are accomplished.
People are familiar with my songs, especially through Eric Clapton. But I have a hard time drawing a crowd, because I have been a songwriter.
Oil was the big business in Tulsa and there was quite a bit of nightlife for a small town. You could never make any money, but you could always find a place to play.
That's the nice thing about songwriting: You don't have to punch a clock or be in a specific place to do it. There's really a lot of freedom to it.
I've always enjoyed playing. If all it meant were to just stand there and play my axe and sing, I could have gone on forever.
I guess if I'd have more of a producer attitude, maybe I'd sell more records. But I'm basically a songwriter.
If I was strictly an artist, I'd have to learn to dance and get a shiny suit and stuff.
I've stolen licks from just about every person that ever picked up a guitar. We all borrow from one another; it's called legitimate stealing.
I played a lot of nightclubs in and around Tulsa till I was about 22, 24 years old, then I started travellin' around.
That's one of the problems in being a songwriter and living a long time. What you eventually end up doing is you start imitating yourself.
Songwriting is just like any other kind of writing - it's either fiction or nonfiction. You can even get into philosophy and politics, which I've done on occasion.
You don't really need a lot of hype and to be famous to sell songs.
Yeah, Lynyrd Skynyrd, I knew all them guys.
I was mainly a songwriter; I really wasn't much of a performer.
I was an engineer for a long time. I was a sideman guitar player.
I make my living writing songs and, you know, I'm not a show biz kind of guy.
I've always tried to come up with something that would catch your ear.
We used to say when we were 20 years old, that when you reach 30, you gotta hang up your guitar and get a real job.
Working in bars back then, in the '50s, to get a job you had to play all kinds of music. There'd be customers come in and yell jazz tunes at you and yell rock 'n' roll tunes at you and polkas and rhythm and blues and country music.
What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.
All record companies want big-selling records, and my music is a little too raw for commercial success.
Nobody really produces my albums.
What's really nice is when you get a check in the mail.
I sing and play guitar, but songwriting is how I pay my rent. And so I didn't really need a lot of publicity to get people to record the songs.
I'd do the blues all the time if I could, that's what I'm into. But people just don't like to hear it.
I think it goes back to me being a recording mixer and engineer. Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound.
Where I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it wasn't the south-east and it wasn't the deep south and it wasn't quite the south-west either.
You know, I write songs, I repair guitars.
I wanted to be able to play music, and then when I went out in my private life, my personal life, I didn't want to be famous.
Probably the only thing that I really don't like about being an old guy is so many of the people who understand what we know are gone.
From the first album I'm playing bass on a lot of the tunes, and piano on a lot of 'em, and drums, and guitars. I did that on almost every album.
Clapton was just picking up ideas. He picked up some of mine like I picked up some from the people before me.
There's a couple of songs of my own I wished I'd have never put out, that, you know, I'd like to burn. But with the advent of digital and computer, nothing goes away any more, you know.
