Product Description

The image on the cover of J.J. Cale's fifth album is apt. It's the numeral five as it appears on paper currency; apt for an album that proves that Cale is indeed money in the bank. The album builds a slow but steady momentum with each song, as sturdy supporting grooves abound. Several songs featureCale by himself or in the company of one other player or singer, and the cast of musicians expertly carry out his visions throughout. Though the album mines a familiar bluesy and rootsy territory, Cale gives it all his own signature stamp.Cale extends 5 beyond a back-porch, small-combo affair by utilising strings on two tracks, "Sensitive Kind" and "Mona".The lushness that the strings provide adds a luxuriousness to his version of the blues, in much the same manner as B.B.King and Ray Charles.

Track Listing

1. Thirteen Days
2. Boilin' Pot
3. I'll Make Love To You Anytime
4. Don't Cry Sister
5. Too Much For Me
6. Sensitive Kind
7. Friday
8. Lou-Easy-Ann
9. Let's Go To Tahiti
10. Out Of Style
11. Fate Of A Fool
12. Mona

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4073 in Music
• Released on: 2007-12-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 38 minutes

Customer Reviews

Fantastic
This is a great album, my favourite. Let's Go to Tahiti, Friday,Thirteen Days, Don't Cry Sister, Sensitive Kind. This was made for CD, 15 years to early. Okay I like JJ,but this to me is the peak. And Eric Clapton hasn't covered a single track of this!

Second phase
1979's '5' came three years after Cale's previous effort and marked a significant change in his recording ethic. The production on '5' is a little heavier and more polished than on his earlier albums. It doesn't make for a better album, but the material and the playing is, as usual, peerless. Another difference is song length. The longest track on Cale's debut album barely topped three minutes, but here, backed by brass and strings, the moody 'Sensitive Kind' runs to over five. 'Friday', which is cast in Cale's usual blues mode, is over four.
Superb, twirling blues licks open the compelling 'Thirteen Days'; the smouldering 'Boilin' Pot', which is even slower, is just as effective. 'I'll Make Love To You', raided by Eric Clapton for his 'Backless' album, is more uptempo, the most commercial track on the album. 'Don't Cry Sister', 'Fate Of A Fool' and 'Mona' are more in the slower blues mode of the first two tracks. The most distinctive tracks are 'Too Much For Me', a personal favourite that has the spareness of his earlier work and the less impressive 'Let's Go To Tahiti' and 'Katy Kool Lady'. Cale's earlier albums are better, but '5' is still a great effort.

WARNING J J FANS!
The above two reviews are inaccurate and misleading! True J J Cale fans will realise that the track Katy Kool Lady is in fact not Katy Kool Lady at all but an obscure track that none of us have heard before.