J.J. Cale

J.J. Cale

To Tulsa and Back (Sanctuary) A new album from J.J. Cale is like a home-cooked meal. To Tulsa and Back is the former Okie's first collection of new music in eight years, but as with his past work, it's comfort food for the head, heart, and soul. That's not to say Cale's merely recycling ideas 30 years into his career, because he isn't. Instead, he adds some synthesizer sheen to a few tracks, and tries out some interesting instrumental combinations, including vibes, fiddles, and horns on others. In what's certainly a new tack, at times he even takes a sociopolitical stance lyrically. All of this only serves his trademark finely drawn guitar lines, tobacco-stained vocals, and funky grooves as thick as molasses. The fiddle-led shuffle "One Step" stands out as a perfect melding of Cale past and present with its boogie attitude and shape-shifting backing. Then there's the back-porch blues "Stone River," a song he wrote for the Earthjustice campaign, and "Homeless," a moving commentary on a particularly egregious social ill. Cale even takes a trek to Brazil with the Latin-flavored "Rio." Toward disc's end the sultry "Blues for Mama" lands the listener back in Tulsa, right where one would expect to find the great J.J. Cale.