which Mr Cale had written in about 1966 made the Billboard Top 20 and was Claptons first major hit as a solo artist It also secured Mr Cales musical and financial future"I went Oh man I might stay with the music business " Mr Cale told the Los Angeles Times in 2009 "I was about ready to get out of it I was playing Friday and Saturday nights and looking for a day job"Mr Cale won a Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album for "The Road to Escondido" a recording he made in 2006 with Clapton but for years he was content to live in obscurity and let his understated songs speak for themselves"In my humble opinion" Clapton wrote about Mr Cale in his 2007 autobiography "he is one of the most important artists in the history of rock quietly representing the greatest asset his country has ever had"Mr Cale and his fellow Oklahoman Leon Russell were credited with developing the "Tulsa sound" a relaxed style of bluesy country rock with minor chords simple lyrics and a shuffling beat that helped define a decade of roots-based Southern-style rock-and-rollMr Cales "Call Me the Breeze" which was recorded in 1974 by and later by the Allman Brothers and Cash became a classic guitar-driven anthem to the open highway: "Well now they call me the breeze / I keep blowin down the road"Clapton played "After Midnight" in his concerts for decades along with another tune by Mr Cale "" which was first recorded by Clapton in 1977 Often considered a paean to drug use the song could also be interpreted as a wry unflattering description of it: "If you wanna get down down on the ground cocaine"Neil Young Mark Knopfler Bryan Ferry and Clapton all cited Mr Cale as an influence and critic Geoffrey Himes wrote in The Washington Post in 1983 that Mr Cales "superb guitar leads which other guitarists study faithfully are so thoroughly woven into the fabric that one has to mentally unravel the songs to identify what miracles Cale is working"Other well-known performers who recorded his songs include Carlos Santana ("The Sensitive Kind"); Cissy Houston ("Cajun Moon"); and ("I Got the Same Old Blues"); Chet Atkins and Jerry Garcia ("After Midnight"); and Tom Petty ("Id Like to Love You Baby")"Ive never sold a lot of records" Mr Cale told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1990 "My musics gotten much more famous than me"John Weldon Cale was born on Dec 5 1938 in Oklahoma City and grew up in Tulsa He was playing guitar in Western swing and rock-and-roll bands by the mid-1950s and often worked in Tulsa with Russell who became an influential songwriter and pianistBy 1964 Mr Cale had moved to California and began to master studio work as well as the guitar and other instruments He changed his stage name from Johnny Cale to JJ Cale to distinguish himself from John Cale who played in the Velvet U