MUSIC: Three Tune Tuesday 110 - 3 Songs by J.J. Cale! - (3 Cover Performances!)

Hello everybody on HIVE, and especially the Music Community. My name is Jasper and I'm writing (and singing) to you from Cape Town in South Africa!

This is my 45th week (In a row!) contributing to "Three Tune Tuesday", an initiative started by @ablaze. It is week 110 overall!

In all of my TTT entries I like to play the songs on guitar as well as share the original videos... and I have a newish pattern for "Three Tune Tuesday" where I pick three songs by one of my favourite artists, that has inspired me - as I also write original songs.

This week I would like to pick J.J. Cale. He may be relatively unknown as an artist, but perhaps you will recognise his songs that I will play today? He has been described as very influential because of his "Tulsa/country/blues" sound... Why might you recognise the songs - because everyone thinks they're by Lynryd Skynyrd or Eric Clapton!

The first song is something I remember my dad trying to play on guitar when I was a child! My dad taught me my first three chords, but usually spent his time getting strong hands from rock-climbing rather than dexterous hands from playing guitar, so it wasn't long before I was the family musician by the braai (BBQ) fire instead! It is a classic 12 barre blues called "Call Me The Breeze" that is often thought to be by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Eric Clapton and even John Mayer have covered this song as it is kind of like a blues standard that is great to solo over! Here is the original J.J. Cale version:

Not famous enough for you? How about the song "Cocaine", which is usually thought to be one of Eric Clapton's more famous songs? Here is the original J.J. Cale version:

In fact, there are other Eric Clapton songs that were originally written by J.J. Cale. Let's end with another one of those, namely "After Midnight". Here's the original:

To be clear, Eric Clapton wasn't ripping off J.J. Cale so much as showing respect for his work. J.J. Cale did get royalties for Eric Clapton's versions of his songs. The two were friendly and there is plenty of footage of Eric Clapton playing lead guitar at J.J. Cale concerts!

Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale even put out a collaborative album together more recently as old farts called "The Road to Escondido" in 2006.

Similar to how I often feel, I am sad I have to stop at three songs, so perhaps I will do a J.J. Cale part 2. In the meantime, as a bonus, here's a funny video of me covering a J.J. Cale song, with nobody but my cats as bandmates because we were stuck in the early days of the Covid pandemic... in the end we shared the worst take of all the bad takes as the cats were not understanding the game!

So that's week 110 done and dusted! I hope you enjoyed the songs by J.J. Cale! Which song was your favourite? Did I miss an important one to you? "Magnolia"?

And so, which artist will I do three covers of next week, for TTT number 111? I hope you tune in to find out and thank you so much for clicking/watching/reading this time!!

▶️ 3Speak