Thursday, July 9, 2026

JJ Cale, Writer of “Cocaine” and “After Midnight,” Dead at 74

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JJ Cale was a great Oklahoma bluesman and essential guitarist who finally rose to fame in 1970 thanks to Eric Clapton. Cale’s songs, “Cocaine” and “After Midnight” became Clapton hits and put Cale on the map at last. He died yesterday in La Jolla, California at age 74 from a heart attack. If you have Spotify or Pandora, check out The Definitive JJ Cale to hear his incredibly important and influential songs. Of course, he is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because that would mean they understood where everything came from.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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