Grammy Award winning musician and songwriter, JJ Cale, who was best known for writing hits such as Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight” and “Cocaine”, died Friday, July 26th from a heart attack.

A message posted on Cale’s Facebook page read, “We’ve lost a great artist and a great person tonight”.

JJ Cale was on of the originators of “The Tulsa Sound” – a mix of rockabilly, country rock and roll, jazz and blues.  He was about to give up hope of making it in the music business when Claption recorded “After Midnight” in 1970.  His songs have also been recorded by Waylon Jennings ( “Clyde”), Lynyrd Skynyrd (“Call Me the Breeze”), and Santana (“The Sensitive Kind”), among others.

Neil Young once remarked, “Of all the players I ever heard, it’s gotta be Hendrix and JJ Cale who are the best electric guitar players.”

Cale was 74.