Timeline: 1973
Paris 1919
Paris 1919, Cale's first real rock album as a solo artist, is released on February 25. Little Feat members Lowell George on guitar and Bill Payne on keyboards as well as Wilton Felder from The Jazz Crusaders on bass are part of his backing band.
"My third solo album, Paris 1919 was the last record I did for Reprise. We recorded in Los Angeles and the producer was Chris Thomas, an Englishman who recently left George Martin's AIR Studios, when he had produced Procol Harum. I didn't know anything about Chris Thomas but David Berson said, 'I've got a guy for you.' And we had a whale of a time doing this thing. There were some crazy things going on. I gave Chris a ride on the bonnet of my Cobra up Sunset Boulevard. When I think back I'm horrified by that. If we'd got stopped we would have both been in jail. I learned a great deal from Chris in terms of general feedback. The weird part was his mother's being from Wales and knowing my mother's mentor in the education system."
Cale and Lowell George had a falling out during the sessions, which were pretty chaotic, due to the amount of cocaine and alcohol consumption that was part of the process. Producer Chris Thomas:
"When we were finishing record, I brought in two bottles of champagne to celebrate. John managed to consume them both when we were doing the final mix. A few hours later, after he'd disappeared, I got a call from him asking could get a bail bondsman. He'd gone to pick up some beer, been arrested for drunk driving, and was in North Hollywood jail. He wanted a hundred dollars to get out. I only had twenty dollars so I asked Little Feat, who were actually recording next door, if they could help. They all said, "Fuck him, leave him there.""
The album was performed live in its entirety in Cardiff (November 21, 2009), with his regular band and a 19 piece orchestra. The show was staged again in 2010 in London, Norwich and Paris, Brescia, Los Angeles and Melbourne. 2011 shows in Barcelona, Essen and Malmö.
The album was reissued in expanded form on May 29 2006 and again as remastered and expanded release on November 15, 2024.