J. J. Cale

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.

No. 1, I'm a songwriter, and I don't really get out and tour.

Everybody lives in a city, cause there's not too many people in the small towns who can find work.

All artists are redundant about their own style; they can't escape themselves.

I always wrote for musicians, especially guitarists. I write songs that people who aren't great virtuosos can play.

I'm always doing something that ain't happening, and I'm always happening when there ain't nothing going on.

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.

You never know how people are going to find songs for their records. Sometimes people will hear songs on someone else's record and really like 'em.

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.

Sometimes I make up songs, and they're just strictly fiction. Other times, I draw on things that have happened in my life or friends, women, all sorts of things.

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 love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.

You know, I write songs, I repair guitars.

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.

My performing and my singing leave much to be desired, but having other people record my songs is the most flattering thing that can happen.

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 was a studio engineer out in L.A. for about six or seven years, and I played sideman for different people, and played in bar bands. I was an old man of 32 when I made my first album.

I played a lot of nightclubs in and around Tulsa till I was about 22, 24 years old, then I started travellin' around.

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.

I've always tried to come up with something that would catch your ear.

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.

So, my records really didn't sell, but musicians started picking up on my sound and my songs and cutting my songs and that turned into a gold mine.

What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.

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.

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.

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.

People said my records were 'funky' and 'muddy,' but the truth is they were just demos.

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.

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.

The only albums that I have personally named were 'number 5,' 'number 8' and 'number 10.'

I didn't have a phone there for about 10 years.

When they say, 'Well, you gotta do some interviews on TV,' I went, 'Oh, I like to watch TV, but I don't wanna be on it.'

I rarely have any contact with the artists who cover my songs.

Playing out in a band all the time at least you made money. Even if you have a hit song, it takes about two years to pay.

I sure love to write songs, but I'm not so sure of my voice.

I cut all my early records in Nashville, so I guess that makes me country. I call it country pop, but my love of the blues is in there, too.

The music is the same if you go all the way back to the first albums I made or the middle or whatever. The thing that's different is the lyrics.

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'm basically a songwriter, man. Songwriters are down in the fine print, you know? And I really enjoy that.

I was kind of a sideman. Then I became kind of a singer-songwriter.

All my music sounds the same to me.

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'm an electronic manipulator. Most people think J.J. Cale, he's organic. There ain't nothing organic about me.

I was an engineer for a long time. I was a sideman guitar player.

A lot of people are coming down on people taking old rock 'n' roll songs and making commercials out of them, but from a songwriter's standpoint, I don't mind because it helps pay my rent.

Ask any guitar player - it's hard to feed yourself when you're picking for a living.

I ain't got much to say.

I just play my guitar and push my songs and I'd like to keep it quiet.