News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Three who knew John (JJ Cale, 1938-2013)
by Barry Friedman
I didn’t go to talk about Cale.
It was 2005, and I was at Boston’s in Tulsa, doing a story on Tom Skinner’s Science Project, a Wednesday night jam session where the finest collection of musicians you've never heard of played for the door and, usually, an empty tip jar. It was the kind of club that seemed to change names every time you drove by. Skinner was sitting on the edge of the stage, between sets, replacing a guitar string.
“Happens every time I let him borrow it,” he said, motioning with his head to where the guy was.
“Comes from beating the fuck out of it,” said another musician who happened to be walking by.
Larry Spears, a songwriter; Bradley James, a guitarist; Jimmy Karstein, a drummer, and I were sitting at a table. A flutist walked on stage.
Really.
And that’s how it worked. If you could play, you could come; if you could play well, you could stay.
The flutist had been here before.
James said the sound of Science could go from “brilliance to debauchery to brilliance in a few bars.”
The flutist was wearing a silk shirt, unbuttoned half way, and clipping on his instrument.
“What do you think happens to you in life,” Spears asked nobody in particular, “make you want to play the flute?”
And then someone mentioned After Midnight.
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“Eric Clapton’s After Midnight?” I asked.
It’s not his.
JJ Cale was coming to town to play the Cain’s Ballroom. Karstein, who had been in Cale's band on and off for forty years, would be playing with him. I asked if he could tell me about After Midnight, about Clapton, about the Tulsa sound, about growing up in Tulsa and the early days with Leon Russell, David Gates.
Jimmy waved me off, looked towards the stage.
“Ah, hell! Go ask some of them. They’ll Cale you to death.”
The Tulsa Sound. What is it? Ask two musicians, get three answers.
When Cale died last week, I called Karstein, who was at Cale’s funeral … wrote Tom Skinner, who felt more than he knew … called Brad James, who had lost a muse.
I asked again.
Spears said there's a "clean line" from Cale to where we are now.
Musicians. You had to be there.
They still are.
Cale, too.
Bradley James, guitarist
I’ll Cale you to death. JJ was a made up (by a nightclub owner I think) stage name. The people that I knew that were his family called him John. It seemed like his musician buddies called him Cale. It was a dead giveaway when people would call him JJ that they were fans.
Jimmy Karstein, drummer
That story is true, at least I think it is. Elmer Valentine—and that’s his real name, believe it?—who was co-founder of the Whisky a Go Go at the time, where Cale was playing took him out one night and said, ‘Look at that sign, John’ and showed him the marquee. 'I got Johnny Rivers, Johnny Cale. I need to change your name to JJ, okay?'
Now, I heard that story from the horse’s mouth, but Cale was also the kind of guy who would tell you the Arkansas River was filled with Pepsi Cola and expect you to believe it, so who knows?
Tom Skinner, singer-songwriter, started with Garth Brooks
Okie flags should fly at half mast until further notice.
Karstein
He was just a fucking guy—like the rest of us. He absolutely shunned the fan adulation, the stardom. Not among musicians. He could have been a much bigger star. He purposefully kept his success to a minimum. He thought of himself as a songwriter and a guitar player more than he did JJ.
James
If we try to analyze why the recordings are so rich, did he double the vocal or use a drum machine and then add a real shaker, is he really just talking out loud to the band during the take? Then it seems all very mysterious. Before the internet it was hard to even know what he looked like. The albums didn't have much in the way of pictures. But first time the needle dropped on the vinyl, I knew.
Karstein
He wore out the soles of his tennis shoes going from the house to the mailbox to pick up residual checks. One time we’re going to a gig from San Diego, after one of the albums was released, and he asked, "Well, if we do a TV show, which one do you want to do?” I yelled out Leno; his wife yelled out Letterman. But we never did either one. He just didn’t want the popularity here in the states. Europe he didn’t mind. One time we were sitting around his house, talking about fame, notoriety, and he put his palm face down, parallel to the floor, couple feet high, like you’d measure a little kid, and said, “I like it right here.”
Skinner
I wasn't as close as Brad, but he was for sure a musical hero to me
James
I think one of the really captivating things about the recorded music is the groove. I used to think that he must just know all the right guys to come lay it down on the records. Really, one on one, just one guy, one guitar, he WAS the groove. That was the Tulsa sound—the groove.
Skinner
I was really nervous and he was extremely warm and gracious and down to earth. He encouraged me to keep doing what I could to unite the local scene.
James
One of a kind rhythm guitar. He is revered among guitarists for his amazing lead playing (sounds real easy till you try it) but he was the best at solo rhythm guitar, laying down a serious groove. I am really sick at the idea of never being able to hang out or hear him again. I am really sad for Christine [Lakeland, his wife] and Karstein who have loved him for their whole lives as just a good guy and not as "JJ Cale". Sad for their loss. I think he just liked to play music with his friends. I am sure that after all the lean years (he did not "make it" as a young guy) that he appreciated the mailbox money. He was a fabulously talented guitar player. I sure feel blessed that someone who was a super hero to me became an acquaintance and a friend.
Karstein
The other night, at the memorial service at McCabe's Bar and Grill in Santa Monica—and Clapton was there and he said, “Cale was the older brother I never had.” Now, I never got that sense about him, because we were friends, but ….
James
What I’ll remember: that we got to play some music together in this life. That my Dad realized how cool it was that John Cale knew my name.