The history on that deal was, the original ‘After Midnight’ I recorded was on Liberty Records on a 45-rpm, and it was fast. That was about 1967-68, maybe 69. I can’t remem- ber exactly. But that was the original ‘After Midnight,’ and that is what Clapton heard. If you listen to Eric Clapton’s record, what he did was imitate that. No one heard that first version I made of it. I tried to give the thing away, until he cut it and made it popular. So, when I recorded the Naturally album Denny Cordell, who ran Shelter Records at the time, and I had already finished the album, he said, ‘John, why don’t you put ‘After Midnight’ on there because that is what people recognize you for?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve already got that on Liberty Records, and Eric Clapton’s already cut it, so if I’m going to do it again I’m going to do it slow.
You were a part of that huge Cross- roads Guitar Festival that Eric Clapton put on this summer down in Dallas. Did you enjoy that? What a trip that was, man. That was the rea- son I went on tour. I took that gig, and when I took that gig the booking agency put on 35 more gigs with it. I got to meet Santana. Of course, I used to open for ZZ Top back in the 70’s. Sonny Curtis was there, I’m a big fan of his. James Burton was there, I got to see James. Joe Osborne, the bass player, I got to meet Pat Metheny, Steve Vai. Sonny Landreth was there. I worked a gig with Sonny up in Canada. It was a guitar player’s delight, man. It was just one great guitar player after an- other. Everyone played about 30 minutes. It went on for three days. I got to see some guys I haven’t seen in a long time, and I got to meet some guitar players that I never met be- fore.
The new album is great. I’ve been dig- ging on that Cale groove that you al-
ways hit. Alright. Thank you, man.
I recently watched a PBS show on the great composer Richard Rogers, and it featured an interview with him where he was asked about how he wrote songs. He said that songs rarely came to him out of the blue, from inspira- tion, but that he had to sit down and work at it. How does songwriting hap- pen for you? I’ve had songs that just come out of the air, and it was over, and I wrote the words down, and I’d go, ‘Where did that come from?’ Be- cause I was an engineer I wrote a lot in the studio. There is one thing I never did; I’m not a poet, so I never wrote the words out and then tried to put music to it. I’d always come up with the music first and then put the words to it, or write the music and the words on the guitar at the same time. Some of the songs were a labor of love, some of the songs I had no idea why I wrote them. And, some of the songs I worked on forever. And a lot of them I worked on forever and they never came out, thank God. You name it, I’ve writ- ten that way, in studios, in the living room, on busses. ‘After Midnight’ was an instrumental track. I cut about four tracks, and I left it alone there for about six months, and then I went back in and wrote the words to it. But I have never written the words first and then put music to it.
The first cut on the new To Tulsa And Back CD, “My Gal,” features that clas- sic JJ Cale slow burn of a groove. It’s great. Well, that’s Jimmy Karstein playing drums on that. The drums had a lot to do with it. That particular song I wrote in Nashville many years ago. When I got ready to make the album, I didn’t re-write it, but I just used the
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