His songs have been performed by a number of other musicians including "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton,"Cajun Moon" by Randy Crawford, "Clyde" and "Louisiana Women" by Waylon Jennings, "Magnolia" by Jai, "Bringing It Back" by Kansas, "Call Me the Breeze" and "I Got the Same Old Blues" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "I'd Like to Love You, Baby" by Tom Petty, "Travelin' Light" and "Ride Me High" by Widespread Panic, "Tijuana" by Harry Manx, "Sensitive Kind" by Carlos Santana, "Cajun Moon" by Herbie Mann with Cissy Houston, and "Same Old Blues" by Captain Beefheart.
Cale was born on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was raised in Tulsa and graduated from Tulsa Central High School in 1956. Along with a number of other young Tulsa musicians, Cale moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s, where he first worked as a studio engineer.
The Leathercoated Minds was a 1966-67 psychedelic studio-based band masterminded largely by Snuff Garrett and J J Cale. The band produced one album, A Trip down the Sunset Strip, co-produced by Cale and Garrett
Finding little success as a recording artist, he later returned to Tulsa and was considering giving up the music business until Clapton recorded "After Midnight" in 1970. His first album, Naturally, established his style, described by Los Angeles Times writer Richard Cromelin as a "unique hybrid of blues, folk and jazz, marked by relaxed grooves and Cale's fluid guitar and laconic vocals. His early use of drum machines and his unconventional mixes lend a distinctive and timeless quality to his work and set him apart from the pack of Americana roots-music purists."
Some sources incorrectly give his real name as "Jean-Jacques Cale". In the 2006 documentary, To Tulsa and Back: On Tour with J.J. Cale, Cale talks about Elmer Valentine, co-owner of the Sunset Strip nightclub Whisky à GoGo, who employed him in the mid-1960s, being the one that came up with the "JJ" moniker to avoid confusion with the Velvet Underground's John Cale. Rocky Frisco tells the same version of the story mentioning the other John Cale but without further detail.
His biggest U.S. hit single, Crazy Mama, peaked at #22 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1972. During the 2006 documentary film To Tulsa and Back Cale recounts the story of being offered the opportunity to appear on Dick Clark's American Bandstand to promote the song, which would have moved the song higher on the charts. Cale declined when told he could not bring his band to the taping and would be required to lip-sync the words to the song.
Cale died on Friday, July 26, 2013, at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, California, after suffering a heart attack.
Shady Grove
J.J. Cale Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Down the road, and up the hill
Round the bend, and behind the mill
When just a kid i used to go
To a place called shady grove
That is where i first met her
She changed my life with one just one word
I call it goin' down to shady grove
Shady grove, shady grove
In the middle of shady grove
Sometimes we'd steal away at night
All the same the feel was right
There was no city, there was no town
'cause shady grove was all around
We'd just lay down look up and see
The vast expanse of the old, old tree
When our love had turned to lust
Shady grove would cover us
Shady grove, shady grove
In the middle of shady grove
No one would ever come by
We were young and very shy
It seemed to wrap around us both
The place we called shady grove
Not long ago to my surprise
I seemed to have to go back
I went back to that same old spot
The trees were gone - it's a parking lot
Shady grove, shady grove
In the middle of shady grove
The lyrics of J.J. Cale's song "Shady Grove" tells the story of a nostalgic memory of a place called Shady Grove - a place where the singer went as a kid when he met a girl who changed his life with just one word - love. Although the singer is not sure if what they had was truly love or just a physical attraction, they would steal away at night where, in the middle of Shady Grove, they would find a vast expanse of an old tree where they would lay down and, for the moment, everything around them was insignificant. The chorus repeats the name of the place, perhaps as a way to emphasize the significance it held in the singer's life.
The song highlights the theme of nostalgia and the reality that everything changes eventually. The singer goes back to the same spot where he used to find solace and discovers only a parking lot where the trees and the space where they used to lay down have disappeared. The irony of it all is that the once serene and calming spot has been replaced by a landscape of concrete - it's as if life has swallowed up the only place where the singer found a sense of peace and acceptance.
Overall, "Shady Grove" tells the story of the singer's coming of age - a time of innocence, discovery, and wonder when everything revolved around the simplicity of childhood. It also highlights the brutal truth that the past cannot always be revisited, and our memories are sometimes all we have left.
Line by Line Meaning
Down the road, and up the hill
Walking up the path and crossing the hill
Round the bend, and behind the mill
Making a turn and heading towards the mill's backside
When just a kid I used to go
As a child, I've been frequent to that place
To a place called shady grove
This place that I'm talking about is called shady grove
That is where I first met her
It's the place where our paths crossed for the first time
She changed my life with just one word
My life took a flip with the utterance of one word by her
She called it love, but I don't know
She referred to it as love, but I'm still unsure
I call it goin' down to shady grove
To me, it's going down to shady grove
Sometimes we'd steal away at night
Many times we would sneak in at night
All the same the feel was right
Despite all, it felt correct
There was no city, there was no town
In that place, there was no city or town nearby
'Cause shady grove was all around
The entire area was known as shady grove
We'd just lay down, look up, and see
We'd relax on the ground, gaze at the sky above
The vast expanse of the old, old tree
The massive old tree's expansion in front of us
When our love had turned to lust
After we got physically intimate, from being in love
'Cause shady grove would cover us
Shady grove surrounded us and encompassed our moments
No one would ever come by
No one ever came near us
We were young and very shy
We were young, and being hesitant is natural
It seemed to wrap around us both
It felt like shady grove was wrapping us together
The place we called shady grove
The place we fondly called shady grove
Not long ago to my surprise
Recently, to my amazement
I seemed to have to go back
I felt the urge to revisit the same place again
I went back to that same old spot
I went back to that familiar place
The trees were gone- it's a parking lot
Alas, the trees were no more, it turned into a parking lot
Shady grove, shady grove
Shady grove, shady grove
In the middle of shady grove
In the heart of shady grove
Contributed by Thomas O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.