Song Book: John Cale

His name is Cale, but you can call him John.

He never wrote a song called Cocaine, and he never wrote a song called After Midnight…

He rose to fame as a member of The Velvet Underground where his writings were often overshadowed by the obvious giant.

Nevertheless, he has made music with numerous artists, producing albums for The Stooges, Nico, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Modern Lovers, Happy Mondays, Squeeze, Jennifer, Chunky Novi & Ernie, Modern Guy and a lot more.

For this songbook we selected only Non-Velvet songs, but occasional collaborations with Eno or Riley were allowed.

 

Thus wrote our regular visitor and commentator Richard!

Earlier this month he contacted Jonder with the proposal of doing a John Cale Song Book, which after some checking seemed like a great idea as it turns out that his songs have been covered by loads of bands and artists, but no attempt was ever made to gather some of these for a Tribute or Cale Covered album!

As I started the Song Book series we decided it would make sense (if that’s the right word!) that I would work this out with him and make a selection out of the 80+ songs he’d shared with us!

Not an easy task, but the results (spread across 2 CDs) speak for themselves.

Artists include:  

Rob de Nijs, Hackney Five-O, Chris Spedding, Mathilde Santing, Yo La Tengo, SF Seals, Sally Timms, Peter Whitehead, Alejandro Escovedo, My Friend The Chocolate Cake, Roddy Frame, CCC, Extra Virgin Mary, The Teardrop Explodes, The Heliocentrics, Okkervil River, Mark Lanegan, AJ Lambert, Alex Rex
Ja, Panik, Genya Ravan, The Dolphins, Dom Dummaste, David J, Barkmarket, Sol Invictus, Sugar Ray, The Wave Pictures, Dar Nahmias, The Ladybug Transistor, Experimental Products, Cheap Time, Aisha Orazbayeva, Dark Blue, Superchunk, Ratso, Chicken Snake, Allá