J. J. Cale - Rare Studio Tracks, 1973-2013

Here's something that's a de facto guest post. My musical friend MZ is a big fan of laid back guitarist J. J. Cale, and collected a bunch of his rare studio tracks. I saw that he missed some, and managed to find some more. So we did this together, but most of the work was his. Thanks, MZ!

Cale has left a lot of good songs off his albums, for whatever reason. He's released two archival albums consisting of entirely previously unreleased songs, "Rewind" in 2009, and "Stay Around" in 2019, which was six years after his death in 2013. Even so, there's more. All the songs here are different than the ones on those two albums. 

Since this only includes rare studio tracks, not live ones, the vast majority are officially released songs. Five songs come from the "Anyway the Wind Blows" compilation album. Some more are from an EP, B-sides, bonus tracks, a DVD, his contributions to other people's albums (where he sang as well as played guitar), and the like. There's only one song that's unreleased, and that's "King City." It was done for an in person radio station appearance, so the sound quality is as good as the rest.

Note that two songs, "Artificial Paradise" and "Stone River," are alternate versions of songs that did make his albums. They're different enough to merit inclusion. Also, I wanted to help make them more available, because much of this stuff is extremely difficult to find.

Now, some people are really big J. J. Cale fans, and love everything he's done. MZ is like that, but I'm not. I like some, but not all. So, I'm posting two versions of this album. One is effectively a double album, an hour and 21 minutes long, that contains all the rare songs MZ and I could find. The other is a "best of," 41 minutes long, that contains just the songs that I liked the best. Take your choice.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of the songs here are Cale originals, or at least co-written by him. If anyone knows of songs here he didn't have a hand in writing, let me know and I'll add that info in. I think MZ and I got just about all the rare studio tracks out there. We found all the ones on our want list, at least. But if anyone knows of anything we missed (that isn't in our early Cale compilation already posted here, called "The Early Years"), let me know and I'll see if we can make additions.

As for rare live tracks, Cale has a bunch of those two. They're a different breed, with a lot more covers, often more soloing, and sometimes a different sound quality, so MZ and I have made a separate collection of those. I plan on posting that soon here as well.

Thanks again to MZ for making this possible. I hadn't planned on doing this otherwise, since I didn't know Cale had so many rare songs. 

Here's the song list for the complete version, followed by the download link:

01 Midnight In Memphis [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
02 Durango [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
03 Woke Up This Morning (J. J. Cale)
04 Things Ain't Simple (J. J. Cale)
05 Juarez Blues (J. J. Cale)
06 It's Good to Be in Austin (J. J. Cale)
07 Santa Cruz (J. J. Cale)
08 Artificial Paradise [Alternate Version] (J. J. Cale)
09 Feels like Rain (J. J. Cale)
10 Blond-Headed Woman (J. J. Cale)
11 Hang Ups (J. J. Cale)
12 Danny's Song [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
13 Love Is Hard to Find (J. J. Cale)
14 Stone River [Alternate Version] (J. J. Cale)
15 King City (J. J. Cale)
16 Daylight (Jamie Oldaker & J. J. Cale)
17 Gasoline (J. J. Cale)
18 Bus Rider (J. J. Cale)
19 High School [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
20 Bird's Song [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
21 On Tour (J. J. Cale)
22 Louvelda (Tony Joe White & J. J. Cale)
23 Worrying Off My Mind (J. J. Cale)
24 The Taker (J. J. Cale)
25 Top of the Hill (J. J. Cale)
26 Angel (Eric Clapton & J. J. Cale)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15102047/JJCal_1973-2013_RareStudioTracks_atse.zip.html

Here's the song list for the "best of" version, followed by its download link:

01 Things Ain't Simple (J. J. Cale)
02 Juarez Blues (J. J. Cale)
03 Santa Cruz (J. J. Cale)
04 Blond-Headed Woman (J. J. Cale)
05 Hang Ups (J. J. Cale)
06 Danny's Song [Instrumental] (J. J. Cale)
07 Love Is Hard to Find (J. J. Cale)
08 King City (J. J. Cale)
09 Daylight (Jamie Oldaker & J. J. Cale)
10 Gasoline (J. J. Cale)
11 Bus Rider (J. J. Cale)
12 On Tour (J. J. Cale)
13 Top of the Hill (J. J. Cale)
14 Angel (Eric Clapton & J. J. Cale)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15106865/JJCal_1973-2013_RareStudioTracks_BestOfVersion_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Cale was taken near his home in San Diego in 1989.