WCSX Classic Cuts : Call Me the Breeze
WCSX Classic Cuts
Lynyrd Skynyrd: “Call Me the Breeze”
The Hook: Most of the band didn’t know it was a cover until after they’d worked out how to play it.
Album: Second Helping
Year: 1974
Writer: J.J. Cale
Stats: Never released as a single by either Skynyrd or Cale, but a classic album track that’s gotten rock radio airplay since its release.
Background: Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington recalls that covering “Call Me the Breeze” came up one day when he and their late singer Ronnie Van Zant happened to hear the original.
Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington recalls that covering “Call Me the Breeze” came up one day when he and their late singer Ronnie Van Zant happened to hear the original. OC:…great song. :28
“One night me and Ronnie was just sitting around listening to JJ Cale — one of our favorite all-time guys — and we heard ‘…the Breeze’ and I loved it and he loved it and we just thought, ‘We should do this song.’ And then he said, ‘Why don’t you figure out a new arrangement.’ So I just wrote the way we’d do it. And the next day at rehearsal we said, ‘Here, let’s do this song.’ We didn’t tell the guys that it was JJ’s song. We just said, ‘Here’s a song we wrote.’ And they didn’t know ’til we figured it out that it was his. It’s a different arrangement and everything, but a great song.”
