If guitar players were voted by juries of their peers, JJ Cale — who died Friday at age 74 — would surely be canonized among rock's all-time six-string top 10. Of course, one reason his fellow pickers revered him is among the same reasons he wasn't as well-known to the masses: he was a master of minimalism.

"I was tired of the 'guitar hero' thing," wrote Eric Clapton in his autobiography, recalling his transition to a lower-key style on his first solo album, "and I was starting to follow the example of JJ Cale." In another interview, Clapton said, "I was tired of gymnastic guitar playing, and when I listened to JJ Cale records, I was impressed by the subtlety, by what wasn’t being played."

Cale's influence on Neil Young is lesser known, but in the biography Shakey, he waxed on about the blues-rocker at length, putting him on a pedestal shared only by Hendrix.

"What is it about JJ Cale’s playing? I mean, you could say Eric Clapton’s the guitar god, but... he can't play like JJ," Young told biographer Jimmy McDonough. "JJ’s the one who played all that s--- first... And he doesn’t play very loud, either — I really like that about him. He’s so sensitive. Of all the players I ever heard, it’s gotta be Hendrix and JJ Cale who are the best electric guitar players. JJ’s my peer, but he doesn’t have the business acumen — he doesn’t have the idea of how to deal with the rest of the world that I do. But musically, he’s actually more than my peer, because he’s got that thing. I don’t know what it is."

Young returned to the subject of Cale in his recent autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, writing, "'Crazy Mama' by JJ Cale is a record I love. The song is true, simple, and direct, and the delivery is very natural." (The song was the closest thing Cale had to a hit single, peaking at No. 22 on the Billboard chart in 1971.) "JJ’s guitar playing is a huge influence on me," Young continued. "His touch is unspeakable. I am stunned by it."

His list of admirers spans generations. It was Clapton who first introduced Cale to the world by covering his "After Midnight" in 1970. But younger fans might have first heard that tune via Phish, whose live versions of it were a staple of their New Year's Eve shows and widely bootlegged. The band first met Cale back in '93. As Cale recalled to Rolling Stone, "Several years ago I got a call saying ‘Do you want to open for Phish?’ I said, ‘Country Joe and the Fish?’”

Beck has frequently performed Cale's "Magnolia," the most famous cover of which was recorded by Poco in the 1970s. "The effortlessness, that restraint and underplaying, undersinging — it was just very powerful," said Beck. "The power of doing less and holding back in a song, I've taken a lot of influence from that."

Cale was typically laconic in describing his own allegedly laconic trademarks: "’Mellow’ and ‘laid-back’ are the two terms most applied to my style and I guess I go along with that. Most of it is medium-, slow-tempo, not really an aggressive, in-your-face kind of thing. When I was a real young fellow and played in bands, just as a guitar player, I played a lot more rock & roll, but when I got into songwriting and had to sing, since I only have about a two-note range, it was easier to do mellow stuff and grooves."

Critics tried (and often failed) to put Cale's slow-moving lightning in a bottle, with Billboard citing “Cale’s trademarked understatement, the Tulsa Soul sound, if you will, with everything falling neatly into a pocket and low-pitched vocals strolling along just behind the beat.” Reviewing his final studio album in 2009, Rolling Stone said most of the songs "ride Cale's signature shuffle groove and are delivered in his barroom Zen-master growl while his bubbling guitar — as much a jam-band archetype as Jerry Garcia's — glints across the shadows."

"Man, is Cale underrated. He’s Gatemouth Brown in a B.B. King world," wrote Michael Corcoran in the Austin American-Statesman, also reviewing the swan song Roll On. "It’s impossible to write about this Okie without using the word 'groove'." The critic said certain songs "are what Bob Dylan was going for on Modern Times, but without the weight of being Dylan, Cale serves the blues rock like the best $1.99 breakfast you’ve ever had... This is Chuck Berry rocking on the porch with his foot keeping the rhythm and his guitar stirring the night air... Nobody can hit it hard and soft at the same time, and still carry a melody, like this 70-year-old boogie minimalist."