"Anyway The Wind Blows: The Anthology" by J.J. CALE - Fifty Album Tracks from 1971 to 1994 on Shelter, Island, Silvertone and Virgin Records featuring Members of Area Code 615, The Muscle Shoals Swampers, Charlie McCoy, Christine Lakeland, Tommy Tedesco, Reggie Young, Buddy Emmons, James Burton, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell and more (June 1997 UK Mercury Records 50-Track 2CD Compilation [Six Previously Unreleased] with Denny Purcell and Gary Mayo Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

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"...No Changes In The Weather...Ain't No Changes In Me..."

 

This is a fantastic little twofer - Remasters of album tracks from November 1971's groundbreaking debut "Naturally" all the way through to 1994's consolidation of his rep for cool with "Closer To You". There are even six Previously Unreleased cuts from his halcyon days at Shelter Records in the Seventies - at least four of which are properly great finds. Fifty tracks, the whole kit and caboodle sweetly remastered too. Tasty like a Tequila, fried chicken and waitresses with a twinkle in one eye and the other on the highway out of town. To the smoothest songwriter who ever lived...

 

UK released June 1997 - "Anyway The Wind Blows: The Anthology" on Mercury 532 901-2 (Barcode 731453290129) is a 50-Track 2CD Compilation of Remasters that plays out as follows:

 

CD1 (76:20 minutes):

1. Call Me The Breeze

2. Crazy Mama

3. Magnolia

4. After Midnight

5. Lies

6. Changes

7. If You're Ever In Oklahoma

8. Midnight In Memphis

9. Cajun Moon

10. Rock And Roll Records

11. Anyway The Wind Blows

12. Crying

13. Everlovin' Woman

14. I Got The Same Old Blues

15. Woke Up This Morning

16. Cocaine

17. The Woman That Got Away

18. Ride Me High

19. Hey Baby

20. Durango

21. I'll Make Love To You Anytime

22. Don't Cry Sister

23. Thirteen Days

24. Things Ain't Simple

25. Sensitive Kind

NOTES:

Tracks 1 to 4 from the album "Naturally" - released November 1971 in the USA on Shelter SW-8908 and January 1972 in the UK on A&M Records AMLS 68105

Tracks 5 to 7 from the album "Really" - released December 1972 in the USA on Shelter SW-8912 and January 1973 in the UK on A&M Records AMLS 68157

Track 8 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (an Instrumental from the "Really" sessions)

Tracks 9 to 14 from the album "Okie" - released April 1974 on Shelter SR-2107 in the USA and June 1974 on A&M Records AMLS 68261 in the UK

Track 15 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (a song outtake from the "Okie" sessions)

Tracks 16 to 19 from the album  "Troubadour" - released September 1976 on Shelter/Island ISA 5011 in the UK and Shelter SRL-52002 in the USA

Track 20 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (an instrumental outtake from the "Troubadour" sessions)

Tracks 21 to 23 and 25 from the album "5" - released August 1979 on Shelter/Island ISA 5018 in the UK and Shelter 3163 in the USA

Track 24 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (an outtake from the "5" sessions)

 

CD2 (76:39 minutes):

1. Carry On

2. Runaround

3. Mama Don't

4. City Girls

5. Devil In Disguise

6. You Keep Me Hangin' On

7. Downtown L.A.

8. A Thing Going On

9. Don't Wait

10. Wish I Had Me A Dollar (Live)

11. Money Talks

12. Hard Times

13. People Lie

14. Unemployment

15. Trouble In The City

16. Santa Cruz

17. Shanghaid

18. Change Your Mind

19. New Orleans

20. Humdinger

21. Lonesome Train

22. Jailer

23. Artificial Paradise

24. Long Way Home

25. Closer To You

NOTES:

Tracks 1 to 3 are from the album "Shades" - released February 1981 in the USA on Shelter Records SR-3453 and in the UK on Shelter ISA 5021

Tracks 4 to 9 from the album "Grasshopper" - released March 1982 in the USA on Mercury SRM-1-4038 and in the UK on Shelter ISA 5022

Track 10 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED - recorded live at the Belly Up Club, Solana, California in 1981

Tracks 11 to 15 from the album "♯8" - released September 1983 in the USA on Mercury 811 152-1 and Mercury MERL 22 in the UK

Tracks 16 is PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED - recorded during "♯8" sessions

Tracks 17 to 20 from the album "Travel-Log" - released October 1989 in the USA on Silvertone Records 1306-J-1 and in the UK on Silvertone Records ORE LP 507

Tracks 21 to 23 from the album "Number 10" - released August 1992 on CD in the USA on Silvertone 01241-41506-2

Tracks 24 and 25 from the album "Closer To You" - released June 1994 on CD in the USA on Delabel/Virgin Records 7243 8 39610 2 3

 

For an artist we are so used to reading so little about on 'any' of his albums (Call Me Mister Laid Back) - the 24-page booklet comes as a pleasant chunky surprise. Famed music chronicler COLIN ESCOTT gets stuck into his convoluted history interjecting the facts with quotes from the great and cool John Cale along the easy-going way. DENNY PURCELL and GARY MAYO of Universal have handled the Archive Remasters and outside of the slightly DIY nature of the early Seventies – they are a joy to hear in great quality.

 

Of the six unreleased, only a crowd shouting live "Wish I Had Me A Dollar" lets the side down. The instrumental "Durango" is swirling fantastic (Soul Boys looking for an unusual Rock tip will love it) - while both the outtakes "Woke Up This Morning" and "Things Ain't Simple" could easily have been sought-after Non-LP 45-single B-sides back in the Seventies day. Lynyrd Skynyrd would brilliantly brass up "Call Me The Breeze" as the Side 2 closer for their best album "Second Helping" in 1974 (the one with "Sweet Home Alabama" on it). After Cream and Derek & The Dominoes, Eric Clapton sort of found his sound with "After Midnight" from the tune-laden debut album by Cale. If you think about, Mark Knopfler did the same on the first "Dire Straits" in 1978.

 

The groove is everywhere too – a sort Funky Cajun Rock that J.J. effortlessly got in say "Hey Babe", "Don't Wait", "Hard Times" and "Runaround" – they are why fans kept coming back for more of the same year after year. "City Girls" is so damn catchy, as is the sneaky "Thirteen Days" from the magnificent "5" album and of course "Cocaine" from "Troubadour" that caught Eric Clapton's ear who then subsequently upped his "Slowhand" album with its guitar presence and cool (they would hook up in later years, a perfect pairing).

 

But spare a thought and a heartbeat for his often gorgeous-ballads – from "Magnolia" on his amazing debut through to "Cajun Moon" and "Sensitive Kind" (a highlight on "5"). Then there are the band romps like the old Ella Mae Morse 50ts Capitol Records hit "Mama Don't" and the original guitar riffage of "Cocaine" - "Unemployment" in the 80ts. Apart from the notorious lo-fi feel to the first album and that beat-box shuffle he used at times on "Really" and "Okie", the production values are fantastic. The PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED "Santa Cruz" sounds awesome and is frankly a whole heap better than much of the slightly drab material on the "♯8" album (a point where I recall many fans and the public alike just stooped listening to him).

 

The 1990 production values for "Change Your Mind" over on CD2 (Track 18) are properly gorgeous – another so hooky Cale groove with his trademark guitar licks punctuating from the left and right at just the right moment. He uses that old beat box for the very Ry Cooder Slide Guitar feel to "Humdinger" – echoed vocals – such a sweet hip shake. By which time we romp home to lonesome trains, a few artificial paradises and moonlight through the steel bars of jails and their accommodating jailers...nice.

 

I have loved J.J Cale and his smooth Cajun ways for 50 years and huge YouTube video clip numbers to his recorded work and gigs with people like Eric Clapton and John Mayer shows that his staggering influence has not waned a jot. An amazing little compilation that you should not get the least bit sensitive about buying...