Heart attack ends JJ Cale's solid gold career

La Jolla - By the time Eric Clapton covered "After Midnight" in 1970, Tulsa rock-a-billy picker J.J. Cale had given up on music. He passed Friday night in a local hospital after suffering a heart attack. 

Suddenly, he recalled many years later, he was a songwriter, no longer just a guitar player with an expensive habit of living.(click here) 

He learned that is a much more profitable business, he often told interviewers. From there on in, he stayed in the background, soft-pedaling his lyrics on vocals, and going on to write many top hits recorded by such luminaries as Lynrd Skynrd, Bonnie and Delaney, and Leon Russell.