A biography for J. J. Calehasn’t been written yet.
“I didn't really get any success till I was 30 years old. I played music when I was young fella, but I didn't really get any success till I was about 30 years old.”
“I always wrote for musicians, especially guitarists. I write songs that people who aren't great virtuosos can play.”
“People said my records were 'funky' and 'muddy,' but the truth is they were just demos.”
“You never know how people are going to find songs for their records. Sometimes people will hear songs on someone else's record and really like 'em.”
“I sing and play guitar, but songwriting is how I pay my rent. And so I didn't really need a lot of publicity to get people to record the songs.”
“I'm not a household name.”
“As the years went by and technology came in, I used a lot of technology.”
“Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing. So I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.”
“I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.”
“A lot of people are coming down on people taking old rock 'n' roll songs and making commercials out of them, but from a songwriter's standpoint, I don't mind because it helps pay my rent.”
“I've always tried to come up with something that would catch your ear.”
“If a guy came up and said 'we got a polka band and we're going to play polkas next Saturday night' I'd play polkas.”
“Oil was the big business in Tulsa and there was quite a bit of nightlife for a small town. You could never make any money, but you could always find a place to play.”
“I just play my guitar and push my songs and I'd like to keep it quiet.”
“I've never sold a lot of records.”
“All my music sounds the same to me.”
“I've stolen licks from just about every person that ever picked up a guitar. We all borrow from one another; it's called legitimate stealing.”
“I'd say writing songs is, for me, as much playing the tape recorder as it is playing guitar or writing words.”
“I'm an electronic manipulator. Most people think J.J. Cale, he's organic. There ain't nothing organic about me.”
“Working in bars back then, in the '50s, to get a job you had to play all kinds of music. There'd be customers come in and yell jazz tunes at you and yell rock 'n' roll tunes at you and polkas and rhythm and blues and country music.”