Studio Masters

Ry Cooder – The Prodigal Son (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 50:16 minutes | 904 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fantasy Records

Ry Cooder’s first new release in six years, The Prodigal Son, is all America, our spiritual, hopeful voices, our raw cries and our sly provocations, voiced through the songs of the Pilgrim Travelers, The Stanley Brothers, Blind Willie Johnson, and Ry Cooder himself.

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Ry Cooder – Pull up Some Dust and Sit Down (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:24 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, issued between two national election cycles, is the most overtly political album Ry Cooder has ever released, and one of his funniest, most musically compelling ones, too. Cooder looks deeply into his musical past using his entire Americana musical arsenal: blues, folk, ragtime, norte~no, rock, and country here. Opener “No Banker Left Behind” updates Civil War-era marching music. Cooder’s guitar, banjo, bass, and mandola lead drummer (and son) Joachim through a scathing indictment of the the financial bailout in 2007. The marching rhythms are punched through with sharp banjo and mandola riffs as Cooder’s signature electric guitar sound frames them. “El Corrido Jesse James” has the outlaw speaking from heaven in waltz time. Accompanied by Flaco Jimenez’s accordion and a horn section, James claims that while he was a bank robber, he never “turned a family from their house,” and asks God for his trusty .44 to “put that bonus money back where it belongs.” “Quick Sand” is a shuffling electric rocker that addresses the plight of illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona. “Christmas Time This Year” is the most incendiary anti-war song in a decade, presented innocently as a Mexican polka. “Lord Tell Me Why” borrows production techniques from Tom Waits, with co-writer and drummer Jim Keltner who assists in getting across this biting, ironic gospel tune: “Lord tell me why a white man/Ain’t worth nothin’ in this world no more….” An 11-piece band assists in “I Want My Crown,” a scorching, growling blues with Cooder’s nasty guitar leading the charge. It’s followed by the album’s finest moment, “John Lee Hooker for President,” where Cooder does a shockingly accurate impression of the late bluesman, in fine boogie mode, paying a visit to the White House, not liking what he sees, and deciding to run for office: “I’m compastatic. I ain’t Republican or Democratic.” He names Jimmy Reed as Veep and Johnny Taylor Secretary of State. His campaign promises swift retribution for injustice and a “groove time” for the nation. If only. The depth of Cooder’s rage is quieter but more direct as the album draws to a close. In “If There Is a God,” God’s been driven from heaven by redistricting; he, “Jesus, Mary and Joe” all hit the road for Mexico. God goes so far as to say he thinks the “Republiklan” legislature wants to bring back Jim Crow laws. Cooder’s sorrow about the environment is pervasive in the final corrido, though he, like the Buddha, leaves room for tolerance, wishing his enemies “No Hard Feelings.” Those who’ve followed Cooder from the beginning will find much to love on Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Those music fans unfamiliar with his work but looking for a comrade in arms will find one here. That said, this is revolution music; worthy of dancing to, learning from, and singing along with: who says topical music has to be boring? – Thom Jurek

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Ry Cooder – I, Flathead (Remastered) (2008/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:05 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Blues Rock, Country, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

Ry Cooder’s I, Flathead, is the culmination of his ambitious and fascinating “California Trilogy”, the last of three albums in which the singer and guitarist journeys through the real and imagined history of mid-20th century, multi-ethnic California, sampling the sounds of its barrios and byways, its nightclubs and honkytonks. He encounters the disenfranchised, the hopeful, the cheerfully strange and seriously nefarious, along with the occasional alien who races around in a souped-up flying saucer on the desert salt flats. On previous instalments, Ch’avez Ravine (2005) and My Name Is Buddy (2007), learning the facts and stories behind Cooder’s songs made them even more compelling, whether it was the not-quite vanished legacy of the Ch’avez Ravine neighbourhood of Los Angeles, bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium, or the allegorical, Bound For Glory-like adventures of Buddy Red Cat in a time of commie-baiting and union-busting. This time, however, no research is necessary: Cooder, a California native, has written a remarkable 104-page novella to accompany this disc, a surreally funny page-turner of a tale about itinerant musician Kash Buk and the various characters he meets in his travels out west, all of whom get to narrate parts of the story. If you mixed John Steinbeck with, say, Thomas Pynchon, and threw in a bit of Popular Mechanics for good measure, it might read something like the I, Flathead narrative.

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Ry Cooder – Election Special (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:38 minutes | 744 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

Ry Cooder’s Election Special is a wake-up call as the US heads into the 2012 fall election season. On Election Special, which he produced, Cooder plays mandolin, guitar, and bass and wrote all of the songs, co-writing one with Joachim Cooder, who plays drums on the record.

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Ry Cooder – Chávez Ravine (2019 Remaster) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:10:44 minutes | 775 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

The 12th studio album from Ry Cooder was his first concept album and historical album telling the story of Chavez Ravine. The Mexican-American community was demolished in the ’50s in order to make way for public housing. That housing was never built and, instead, the Brooklyn Dodgers stadium was erected on that site when they moved to L.A.

Chavez Ravine was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 2006.

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