Music

JJ Cale was as understated in life as his laidback voice is on his recordings. He toured infrequently and politely ignored the limelight. But Cale, who died in 2013, was a masterly songwriter whose music was food for the soul. He influenced everyone from Clapton, who famously covered Cale’s Cocaine, to alt-rock pioneers such as Neil Young, who said Cale’s style on guitar was “a huge influence on me”.

This posthumous release, lovingly compiled by kicks off in vintage Cale form, with the folk-blues number , which is a funky little acoustic portrait of backwoods America that features Cale’s hallmark steady-rolling boogie keeping the song motivated. The songwriter’s tender streak is much in evidence, too, with many of the tracks’ simmering poems devoted to the pursuit of love in small-town America, such as the yearning or the mellow acoustic blues of .