Time Life Records
2007
Rewind: The Unreleased Recordings
About This Album
The folks at Time Life would like you to think that this is a treasure box filled with forgotten gems from J.J. Cale's long career. It's full, all right, of tracks recorded between 1971 and 1993. But there was good reason to leave them off the albums they were recorded for. Most were cut with a band between 1973 and 1982, though even the cover is wrong here, since there is a reading of Waylon Jennings' classic "Waymore's Blues" cut with largely uncredited musicians in 1971. Unfortunately, it adds nothing to the original. The players included here have been among Nashville and Los Angeles' prize session musicians, from drummer Kenny Buttrey and keyboardist David Briggs to bassist Tommy Cogbill and guitarist Steve Gibson. Add Bobby Emmons on B-3 as well as Glen D. Hardin, Richard Thompson, Spooner Oldham, Tim Drummond, and vocalist Christine Lakeland (who wrote "Seven Day Woman" back in 1983), and you have quite a collection of stars. But these feel more like finished demos than polished recordings. The plethora of covers -- such as the Jennings tune, Randy Newman's "Rollin'," Leon Russell's "My Cricket," and Eric Clapton's "Golden Ring" (which is so close to Clapton's own phrasing that it's difficult for a minute or two to tell who the vocalist is) -- suffer from Cale's limited vocal abilities and the rather lazy presentation.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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