Laid Back as Usual
Jack Ethan Salsitz | San Diego, California | 03/11/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"If your a new J.J. Cale listener, you may want to hold off on buying this one, and look to his more accessible studio albums, such as 'Troubador' or '5'.
If you're a long time fan with an extensive collection of Cale's work, you may want to consider buying the DVD of the session that these songs were taken from. However, as a CD, this one is a must for the consumate J.J. fan. The music here opitimizes the essence of the man: laid back, loose, and hanging out with his talented friends. Everything on this CD is live, in studio, with no overdubs or second takes. One or two of his solos miss their mark, which I find to be part of the charm of this collection.
I own the DVD version of this album as well, and the group of musicians featured, including J.J.'s runnin' buddy from his Tulsa days, Leon Russell, are litteraly just hanging around, jamming on some songs they know, some they kind of remember, and one or two new ones that J.J. shows them in the first 8 bars of the song. I have a lot of his albums, and bootlegs, and there are songs on this CD I have never heard before. If you're like me and consider Cale a phenom, get this one and you won't be dissapointed.
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