'Crazy Mama' Times Two

I’d seen the record jacket before: A painting of a raccoon sitting contentedly on a stump, front paws holding a walking stick. He wore a fuchsia waistcoat with a striped cravat, and a top hat rested jauntily on his knee. At his feet dozed a hound dog.


As it always had, the jacket caught my attention. (As opposed to the version shown here, the original record jacket had no words on it, making it much more enigmatic; I could not, sadly, find a good image of that version.) I’m not sure where I was. It might have been Axis, the leather goods and music store in downtown St. Cloud. But wherever I was on that Sunday in March 1973, I knew it was time to buy the record.

In an era known for its extraordinary cover art, the jacket to J. J Cale’s first album, 1971’s Naturally, remains unique, as does Cale’s music, a generally mellow groove of country, blues and folk that slides out of the speakers. It’s an approach that Cale follows to this day, an approach that’s perhaps not worn as well over time as one would like; it can sound repetitious. But in a time when excess volume was a strategy used by many, the self-aware country mellowness of Cale’s first album was a quiet relief and pleasure.

I’d heard some of the album before, of course. A single, “Crazy Mama,” had reached No. 22 on the charts a year earlier, in March 1972. And I’d heard Cale’s slow and bluesy take on “After Midnight” during the hours I’d spent at St. Cloud State’s student radio station. So when I saw Naturally in the used record rack on that Sunday, I took it home. And, as I expected, when I played the entire album, I loved it.

In the years since, Naturally has been one of the albums I’ve frequently turned to when I’ve needed to slow down and shed some of the urgency of life. (There are other albums and artists that do that for me, as well, of course: A few of those artists are Shawn Phillips and Richie Havens, bluegrass and folk singer Kate MacKenzie, alt-country’s Tift Merritt and Ollabelle, a group whose influences wander all over the map; one of its lead singers is Amy Helm, daughter of Levon Helm of The Band.)

So when Cale’s “Crazy Mama” popped up at random on the RealPlayer the other day, I sat back from whatever I was doing and let the music flow through me. As I did, I wondered – as I often do – about cover versions.

It turns out that there are only a few, some of them surprising. Jazz guitarist Larry Carlton included the song on his rootsy 1993 album, Renegade Gentleman. Hurricane Sam, Mac Gayden and the Goshorn Brothers, about all of whom I know very little, have also recorded it. Redbone and Johnny Rivers covered the song in the 1970s, and in 1996, Billy Ray Cyrus included it on his Trail of Tears album.

“Crazy Mama” also showed up in a version by the late Richard Manuel on Whispering Pines: Live at the Gateway 1985, released in 2005. But the version I know best – and like the most – was on High On The Hog, the second album by the 1990s edition of The Band, with original members Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson joined by Jim Weider, Randy Ciarlante and Richard Bell.

(There is some disagreement about the release date for Naturally, with All-Music Guide listing it as 1971 and various Rolling Stone reference books listing it as 1972. There is no date on the record or its jacket. I’ve gone with 1971.)


J. J. Cale – Crazy Mama (1971)
3.33 MB mp3 at 192 kbps


The Band – Crazy Mama (1996)
6.60 MB mp3 at 192 kbps