UMC.org Music Review
J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton: The Road to Escondido
Label: Reprise
Sound/Style: Mature and organic blues/country/southern rock blend
By Steve Morley
(UMC.org)—In 1969, when Eric Clapton was embarking on a solo career, he heard an unreleased recording by J.J. Cale, a then-unknown musician from Oklahoma City. The song in question, “After Midnight,” became Clapton’s first hit single in 1970. The success of the record led to Cale’s solo debut a year later, released to critical acclaim. Indeed, critics have often identified Cale as being the real item, based on his languid and unselfconscious delivery of the songs Clapton made into flashier rock staples. Clapton’s version of “After Midnight,” while appealingly upbeat, is a literal and perhaps less intriguing interpretation of the song’s openly hedonistic lyric: “After midnight, we’re gonna let it all hang down/ After midnight, we’re gonna chug-a-lug and shout.”
In those days, Clapton was the literal embodiment of rock star excess, indulging in a yen for heroin that nearly took his life. Today, as a recovered alcoholic and drug user who has established one of the world’s foremost addiction treatment centers, he has yet to live down the perennial success of “Cocaine” (also penned by Cale), which he denies was ever an endorsement of the drug. Cale’s notoriously ambiguous lyrics make it easy for classic rock revelers to miss the song’s implicit anti-drug message. With the release of the Clapton/Cale collaboration The Road to Escondido, listeners won’t hear anything that condones wild living. If there’s an overriding theme to the rambling and casual collection, it’s the mature perspective of aging, wizened rockers who have seemingly outlived their fascination with worldly pleasures.
Clapton’s stylistic debt to Cale is as evident as ever--he defers to his colleague at nearly every turn, emulating his Oklahoma dialect as he shares lead vocals on almost a dozen Cale originals peppered with the songwriter’s rascally attitude. “It’s Easy,” for instance, is an ambling stab at instant gratification and the quick-fix mentality: “If cash is your problem, you might regret/ You use that old plastic/ Slide deeper in debt/ It’s easy--easy, you see/ If tomorrow never comes, everything’s free.”
Cale gets uncharacteristically politica--with mixed results--on “When This War Is Over,” a track set to an inexplicably spry rhythm: “When this war is over, it will be a better day/ When this war is over, it will be a better day/ But it won’t bring back those poor boys in their graves.” The dogmatic lyric protests killing but doesn’t address the injustice and death that may precede military initiatives, making its anti-war argument less than compelling.
Clapton turns in a strong, smoky lead vocal on “Hard to Thrill,” a track co-written with John Mayer about the numbing consequences of sensory overload and worldly savvy: “Hard to thrill, nothing really moves me anymore/ There ain’t nothin’ you can show me that I haven’t seen before.”
The only other Clapton original is the tender and grateful “Three Little Girls,” a sunny offering that noticeably lacks the oily groove heard elsewhere on the record. It’s a forgivable diversion, featuring the record’s only directly devotional sentiment: “Lord, you put me to the test/ And led me through the wilderness/ Then you showed me a brighter day/ With three little girls.” The verse refers to the loss of his son Conor, whose death in 1991 inspired the well-received “Tears in Heaven.” Now a husband and father with addiction and numerous personal tragedies behind him, Clapton is at the most settled phase of his fame-lit life. It isn’t a giant stretch to imagine him relating powerfully to the redemptive symbolism in Cale’s jubilant “Ride the River”: “Floatin’ down that old river, boy, leaves me feelin’ good inside/ Floatin’ down that old river, boy, trying to get to the other side/ Yesterday is slowly fading, I’ve been waiting now forever for this ride.”
Featuring a host of virtuoso buddies and a lived-in looseness not unlike a fishing trip with electric guitars, The Road to Escondido leads to a dressed-down musical party that celebrates reaching the other side of sixty and having a non-toxic way to let it all hang down.
Audio Clips
"Danger"
"Missing Person"
"Heads in Georgia"
"When This War is Over"
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