Eric Clapton and friends pay tribute to the late JJ Cale!

American musician, singer and songwriter JJ Cale was one of the most prominent figures of the blues-jazz music scene and, especially with his production in the 1960s and 1970s, inspired many of his younger musical colleagues. In July 2013, this extraordinary artist left us unexpectedly and almost to the day, exactly one year after this sad event, he will receive a tribute in the form of an exceptional tribute album, under the patronage of the great Eric Clapton himself!

Eric Clapton never made any secret of the fact that JJ Cale was perhaps his greatest musical role model. For many decades he has looked up to him, occasionally giving a cover version of one of his famous songs, but it was only recently (in 2006) that Clapton met his musical idol in the studio, where their collaborative album, The Road to Escondido, was created to extraordinary acclaim and was subsequently crowned with the prestigious Grammy Award...

On July 28th, an album charting the entire career of JJ Cale will be released in the form of sixteen covers of his well-known songs. Named Eric Clapton & Friends: The Breeze, An Appreciation of JJ Cale, the album will offer new interpretations of notorious songs such as Someday, Starbound, Magnolia, The Old Man And Me and Call Me The Breeze, which gave the album its title. In addition to Clapton, a couple of other musical legends - Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, John Mayer, Willie Nelson, Derek Trucks, and Don White - will also make guest appearances. "I wanted people to start drawing on what JJ Cale was doing - that's the main reason. I'm just the messenger, and I've always felt that that's what my job is. When my music reaches people, I also want people to know where it originated," Clapton himself said of the whole project.

Although JJ Cale is one of America's greatest blues-jazz icons and his musical career has spanned over forty years, he has released only 15 albums in that time. But even those were enough to not only gain him worldwide recognition, but he was also an inspiration and in many cases the reason why some of today's famous artists took up music in the first place. So Eric Clapton & Friends: The Breeze, An Appreciation of JJ Cale is unlikely to be a title that will appeal to the masses of commercially minded listeners, but on the other hand it is one of the few records in recent years that brings together great musical legends celebrating one of their musical mentors. This aspect alone makes the aforementioned album an absolutely exceptional work that definitely belongs in the discography of every true lover of quality music...

http://youtu.be/zsqF3p8ORDE