j.j. cale naturally

Reviewing the LP for Rolling Stone in 1972, Jon Landau said, "This quiet and leisurely album from an excellent guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter is a charmer. J.J. Cale has a unique approach to funk, blues, and country and all it involves is taking things at just as relaxed and mellow a pace as the human metabolism will allow. Here it results in one of the most enjoyable debut albums heard in some time."[9] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less receptive to the "lassitude affected" by Cale and his collaborators. In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), he said that while "Call Me the Breeze" and "Crazy Mama" are "absolutely beguiling", the rest of the record's "murmured blues meditations are so easy on the spirit that even though they have their charms they invite the mistrust of moralizers like myself—there's just too much talent here to justify such slight results."[7] Thom Owens of AllMusic later wrote that "Cale effortlessly captured a lazy, rolling boogie that contradicted all the commercial styles of boogie, blues, and country rock at the time" of the album's release.

Track listingAll songs written by JJ Cale.
Side one

• "Call Me the Breeze" – 2:38
• "Call the Doctor" – 2:26
• "Don't Go to Strangers" – 2:22
• "Woman I Love" – 2:40
• "Magnolia" – 3:23
• "Clyde" – 2:29
• "Crazy Mama" – 2:31
• "Nowhere to Run" – 2:26
• "After Midnight" – 2:25
• "River Runs Deep" – 2:42
• Bringing It Back" – 2:46
• "Crying Eyes" – 3:15