First Posthumous JJ Cale album ‘Stay Around’ Set for Release

JJ Cale died in 2013. In April his first posthumous album ‘Stay Around’ will be released.

‘Stay Around’ features 15 unreleased JJ Cale songs sourced through JJ’s widow Christine Lakeland Cale and his friend and manager Mike Kappis. Christine said she went through everything she could find to find songs she was sure no fan had ever heard.

“I wanted to find stuff that was completely unheard to max-out the ‘Cale factor’… using as much that came from John’s ears and fingers and his choices as I could, so I stuck to John’s mixes…You can make things so sterile that you take the human feel out. But John left a lot of that human feel in. He left so much room for interpretation,” she said.

The first taste of the album is ‘Chasing You’.

Kappis said Cale would often have left-overs from each session. The title track of his final album ‘Roll On’ was 34 years old. ‘Some of the tracks had detailed information, some of them had nothing. Some songs might be a full band of his buddies, others were him playing everything. These were songs he really did intend to do something with because they were carried to his typical level of production for release.”

The songs from ‘Stay Around’ are:

Lights Down Low
Chasing You
Winter Snow
Stay Around
Tell You ‘Bout Her
Oh My My
My Baby Blues
Girl of Mine
Go Downtown
If We Try
Tell Daddy
Wish You Were Here
Long About Sundown
Maria
Don’t Call Me Joe

JJ Cale was a major influence on Eric Clapton. Clapton covered his songs ‘After Midnight’ and ‘Cocaine’ and eventually recorded the album ‘The Road To Escondido’ with JJ. It earned them at Grammy.

JJ’s legacy extended to the people who covered his songs over the decades. JJ Cale songs can be found on albums by Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Cash, John Mayer, Kansas, Widespread Panic, The Band, Bill Wyman, George Thorogood, Poco, Beck and Lucinda Williams.

JJ Cale had a hit for himself all by himself in 1972 with ‘Crazy Mama’.