JJ Cale has died at age 74 from a heart attack. USA TODAY SUMS UP HIS LIFE HERE.
He wrote a lot of songs that were hits for a lot of people.
I remember hearing Eric Clapton’s version of AFTER MIDNIGHT on the radio when I was young. I was never allowed to stay up past midnight. The song, with what sounded like a wild party going on in the background, was the most intriguing thing to my young imagination – trying to picture the party where Eric and his band recorded this, mysterious women seemingly dancing on tabletops, my head swirled in visions of desires for things I didn’t even know existed.
There was no doubt in my mind that one day I would stay up After Midnight and go to that party. The urge to “find out what it is all about” produced a certainty and resolve inside that I shared with no one. But I pursued it when I got the chance. Intensely.
Years later I heard JJ Cale’s original version. By this time I had done plenty of staying up After Midnight. His version is not an advertisement for the glamour of staying up that late but an acknowledgement of that time of the night as a simple, pleasurable reality.
It left me wondering… what if I had heard his version first – whether of not I would have burnt the candle at both ends deep in the nightlife of excess or if I would have appreciated it all some more. The difference between chugging whiskey and sipping bourbon.
Rest In Peace to a musical genius whose work conveys an intuitive truth that his biggest fans might have left out of their versions.