Naturally
This album is dark and moody, with songs like Call The Doctor and Crazy
Mama. Id rate this in my three or four favorite albums by jj. This album
really defined his style, restricted, slow, deep, and full of feeling.
Alot of time what is so great about jj is what he DOESNT play, or DOESNT
sing, and he defines that part of his musical style on this one. Top
picks off this album include Call the Doctor, Woman I Have, and the always
subtle, After Midnight.
-review by Steve Chapman
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Naturally - The "who the heck is C.W. Beavers and is he pictured on the
cover" -album
You can really picture The Man sitting on his porch (with a couple of
buddies with him perhaps) picking his... erhm... guitar, singin' the
blues when you put on this LP, the first piece of gold from the king of
the laid-back. You can feels his dead-on-and-so-mellowly-swinging -style
already on this first (at least seemingly effortless) effort. But
still...you can kick me on this if you like all you fans out there... it
just doesn't quite do the things to me some of the best of JJ do. It
doesn't quite lay down the crisp beat of for example Troubadour
production-wise, but I guess that isn't the reason this is not one of
the top five JJ Cales for me. I Really love the second of his albums and
it sounds quite hissy and foggy too. I guess "Naturally" just feels like
a first album, it's got a different kind of edge. And first first albums
are a rocking cradle: they give you something of real interest but then
they lack something else...
But, hey, don't get me wrong: all in all, this a great album for me as
I'm a real fan, but it isn't on my top five JJ Cale -playlist (which at
the moment feels like: Really, Shades, 5, Travel-logue, Grasshopper
inpo.). And as an addition I can tell you that I this albums would make
it to the top five if all the JJ Cale-fans were drawn to vote for their
faves.
It really breaks my heart to give a 1970's JJ Cale-album a low score of
8/10...
Rating: 8 out of 10
My Desert Island Song: River runs deep
Over all view: a bit foggy and too much fiddles but still JJ Cale! And
it's got the most desribing title of all his albums!! :-)
Review by: Ville Kotiaho, Univ. of Lapland, Finland,
vkotiaho@levi.urova.fi