Country-influenced Rock: J.J. Cale's On Tour with J.J. Cale: To Tulsa and Back DVD

Eric Clapton admits to being lost during his own Crossroads Guitar Fesitval in Dallas, Texas. Lost, that is, while trying to guest with J.J. Cale and band playing Cale’s song, “After Midnight.” Clapton made the song a hit, but it was Cale who penned the song. While the song is a standard in Clapton’s performances, on the J.J. Cale DVD On Tour with J.J. Cale: To Tulsa and Back, Clapton explains that he didn’t know what song Cale was playing for the first 3-4 minutes.

The DVD then switches to show the performance with Cale and the band doing a blues vamp. Because you know what’s coming, you can just barely pick out the chord progression of the popular song. When Cale nods towards Clapton as if to say, “You want to take the lead vocals,” Clapton shakes him off, truly looking like, “I’m not sure what I’d sing, because I don’t know what’s coming.”

The difference is in the way Cale plays his own song—spacious and laidback—whereas Clapton “overplays” it (his own word). That moment spotlights what has come to be so definitive about Cale’s sound—a laidback, country-influenced, blues-soaked rock.

Cale says, “I’m a nervous jerk,” which he admits no one believes because his music is so laidback. Yet, he says that’s because “that’s how I want the music to be.” In other words, the music isn’t meant to match Cale’s persona; it’s meant to match what Cale’s idea of his music.

According to band members and friends interviewed, Cale often does his own mixing, taking the studio tapes away, adding his own “secret sauce” says Jim Karstein, and coming back with something incredible.

Following Cale on the 2004 tour supporting his To Tulsa and Back album, the DVD invites us onto the tour bus to hear Cale’s candid reflections on his life, music, and Tulsa. We get short tours of important places in Tulsa and music history. We’re treated to both back stage scenes and great seats for concerts.

Cale has come to typify the Tulsa sound, a title that he seems somewhat confused by because he sees himself reflecting the sound of so many others. Plus, it’s not that Cale’s sound comes naturally out of his surroundings in Tulsa. Whereas Cale’s music is laidback, it’s again because he crafted it that way as opposed to some of the things that he saw around him.

Oil was king in Tulsa with the smell in the air; the oil business was anything but laidback. Cale talks about his Tulsa with the railroad yard in the background, the clicking of the tracks, the conflagration of industry and people looking less than relaxed. There were the strip of bars and skid row which brought music—and excess. While Cale was growing up in Tulsa, it wasn’t that everyone was just lounging around, picking a slow country blues beat. In fact, industrial progress was marching at a fast clip, and Cale would come to counter the sound of oil rigs, train cars, machinery, booms, crashes, poverty, and squalor.

In trying to identify key components in his sound, Cale lands on the fact that he was inspired by Billie Holiday’s singing which was behind the beat. Plus, Cale never played too loud; he wasn’t screaming, likes to keep all of the instruments and vocals in a “soup,” which means he comes at you in a laidback approach, letting your ears pick up out the elements rather than always shining big spotlights on just the important parts.

On Tour with J.J. Cale is beautifully shot with some of the road shots—the interstate flying by, the tour bus headed down the road—being the perfect backdrop for some of Cale’s songs (including the instrumentals written specifically for this DVD).

After seeing Cale’s story, it’s clear that “Call Me the Breeze” describes his preference for a gypsy lifestyle. Having managed to stay out of the public eye for years, choosing over long periods of time not to tour or record, Cale is a recluse in the public eye—which makes the DVD that much more important, allowing us to hear Cale’s story in his own words. Fortunately, On Tour with J.J. Cale allows us to see how the music and man come together to make J.J. Cale a very respected artist and individual. As Jim Karstein says, he is the “most unaffected man in the music business.” That shows, even on a DVD devoted to that man. It hasn’t gone to Cale’s head; he’s too laidback about it. . .at least, in the music.

Thank you to J.J. Cale, Sanctuary Records Group, and TimeLife for the review copy.