Born John Weldon Cale · 5 December 1938, Oklahoma City · died 26 July 2013, San Diego
Cale grew up in Tulsa, learned sound engineering before he learned to make a living at music, and built the whole Tulsa-sound aesthetic out of that: shuffling grooves, early drum machines, unconventional mixes, and a vocal deliberately tucked down under the band. He had written “Cocaine” as a loose jazz swing in the manner of Mose Allison before producer Audie Ashworth pushed him toward a harder, more commercial arrangement, and Cale went back and re-cut it. He was famously uninterested in fame — he once turned down a television slot for his biggest US single rather than mime to a backing track — and lived instead on the royalties other people’s hit versions of his songs generated. In 2006 he and Clapton finally made a record together, The Road to Escondido, which won Cale his first Grammy.