J.J. Cale - Grasshopper

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Free Music Notes for Grasshopper

Free Music Review: Very pleasant
Hit: 5 Stars

And yes, listening to this 1982 record, it's hard not to notice the similarities with early Dire Straits material. "Downtown LA" for example, sounds a lot like "Down To The Waterline", and so on and so forth.

Comparisons apart, this is a very pleasant listen. It's full of soft, understated vocals and twangy electric guitars. It's a nice piece of rootsy Americana which plays heavily on the whole "drifter hobo" trip. It will rock out if you listen to it closely but won't invade your privacy unless you want it to. As someone has already mentioned, you get the feeling that some of these songs could have been AOR radio hits ("City Girls" for one was a minor hit) There's lots of tasty guitar licks and, with the addition of congas and other percussion, a couple of nice forays into more ethicky territory.

Some of the studio gloss has dated a tiny bit (the "telephone" vocals on "One Step Ahead of the Blues" for example) and the whole album sounds anything but recent, but in this retro age that's not even a really bad thing. Grasshopper won't change your life, but it's a very pelasant listen all the same.

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