JJ Cale – Rough Trade East Album Launch event 25th April – New album ‘Stay Around’ out 26th April on Because Music

JJ CALE ROUGH TRADE EAST ALBUM LAUNCH EVENT WITH CHRISTINE LAKELAND CALE 25TH APRIL

NEW ALBUM ‘STAY AROUND’ 26TH APRIL

RECORD STORE DAY 12″ SINGLE

FIRST-EVER VINYL PRESSINGS FOR SEVERAL ALBUMS FROM CATALOGUE 26TH APRIL

Because Music, who release the new JJ Cale album ‘Stay Around’ on 26th April, have announced an album launch event at Rough Trade East on 25th April. The evening will feature a conversation and Q&A with Cale’s widow and fellow musician Christine Lakeland Cale (compered by Uncut magazine editor Michael Bonner), previously unseen video footage and an opportunity to hear songs from the new album. As previously announced, Because Music will for the first time release vinyl pressings of four albums from his catalogue: ‘Closer To You’ (1994), ‘Guitar Man’ (1996), ‘Live’ (2001) and ‘To Tulsa and Back’ (2004). ‘Roll On’ will also be re-pressed after a long period out of print. The reissues will be released on the same day as the new album. In addition, a 12″ single featuring ‘Stay Around’ and a new, unreleased track ‘Worrying Off Your Mind’ on the b-side to mark Record Store Day.  

Thurs 25th April – ‘Stay Around’ album launch event  – Rough Trade East, London – More infoHERE  

‘Stay Around’ was compiled by those closest to Cale – Christine Lakeland Cale and friend and longtime manager, Mike Kappus. For the first time in a decade, listeners will be moved by a new collection of unreleased songs, a feat that’s possible due to Cale’s modus operandi: in addition to regularly writing and recording new songs in his home studio, Cale would typically reserve outtakes from one album for later release on another. That resulted in a reserve of ready for release songs from which this album’s collection was drawn. In compiling ‘Stay Around,’ Christine pored over these 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 Christine’s words, the “Cale Factor.” The only song not written by Cale is Christine’s ‘My Baby Blues,’ the first song she and Cale cut as a four-piece combo in Bradley’s Barn studio in 1977, the year they met.  

WATCH ‘STAY AROUND’ VIDEO HERE 

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 “effortlessness…restraint 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 while—in the unwavering desire to lead a normal life—eluding 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 pair’s 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 Cale’s 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.