John Weldon Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013), professionally known as
J.J. Cale, was an American
singer-songwriter,
recording artist and influential guitar stylist. Though he deliberately avoided the limelight (being temperamentally averse to
celebrity) his influence as a musical artist has been widely acknowledged by figures such as
Mark Knopfler,
Neil Young and
Eric Clapton who described him as “one of the most important artists in the history of rock”. He is considered to be one of the originators of the
Tulsa Sound, a loose genre drawing on
blues,
rockabilly,
country, and
jazz.