He hasn't gone anywhere, of course. He lives, and until someone informs me otherwise I will assume he remains well. But...
My introduction to Ry Cooder was 1987's Get Rhythm. I had no idea what an anomaly it represented in his ouevre. Sister Rosetta Tharpe said there are only two types of music — blues and gospel. Get Rhythm was blues at its rowdiest. The album had its circumspect moments — or “moment,” since “The Borderline” was really all that passed for sober circumspection on that album. The rest of it was torqued up to 11, in attitude if not always in amplitude. The album rocked, and when I caught up with past offerings I understood just how hard it rocked. Get Rhythm offered a schooling to up-and-coming youngsters, but was also in hindsight an aging master's farewell to youth and young manhood.
After that, Ry seemed to become a predominantly serious man. Of course things have become serious for us all — I wouldn't argue against that. And Cooder seemed to be walking alongside (if not slightly behind, where he seems most comfortable) his listeners, taking things in stride to the best of his abilities. Chavez Ravine (2005) was an admixture of cultural/political/let's-have-fun sensibilities. My Name Is Buddy (2007) was a pet (sic) project that channeled Woody Guthrie and Kenneth Grahame in equal measure. Then I, Flathead showed up, getting the octane mixture exactly right — equal parts nostalgia to thrill. 2011 brought Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down, and 2012 Election Special — both strong indicators that Ry believed there were clear political solutions to the difficult problems besetting us all, if only we had the courage to face them and act.
It is 2018, and political solutions do not appear possible to those determined to act in good faith.
With The Prodigal Son, Ry reaches for spiritual coherence and elevation, and achieves it. It doesn't have the testosterone-fueled snap of Get Rhythm and the more boisterous songs of I, Flathead, yet it still rocks. Blind Willie Johnson is well represented, as is Carter Stanley and Blind Roosevelt Graves. Ry's own contributions are humbly offered affairs not out of place with his estimable saintly company. And it is bittersweet to hear, probably for the final time, the voice of Ry's long-time collaborator, the late Terry Evans.
“Keep the faith,” is clearly Ry's message. There is still joy to be had in the day-to-day struggle — sometimes it just takes a rousing slide-guitar to dust it off and let it shine.
Am reviewing your Ry Cooder posts here a bit, having picked up a used ($3.99) copy of Bop Till You Drop, on a whim, while out with T. last night. (A post-movie visit to Reckless Records, for which she got a gift cert. from me for Xmas.) This is the first Cooder album I’ve owned, or listened through for that matter. Don’t even have Buena Vista Social Club, by way of whose media-event stature a couple of decades back I know his name to begin with. Anyway, can say that ‘reaching for spiritual coherence and elevation’ isn’t what I get from a first listen, to be sure. I am sort of wondering whether it doesn’t fall into, or near to, that concept-album-in-disguise category you suggest in reflections on I, Flathead, though I expect there’s no question of its belonging to the ‘most memorable’ set.
ReplyDeleteWhen you put "'reaching for spiritual coherence and elevation'" in scare-quotes I broke into a cold sweat and feverishly Googled to make sure I had not made any such claims about Mr. Cooder. Whoever you quote, it's not me -- at least not in reference to Cooder. Whew!
ReplyDeleteElevation he attains, but "spiritual coherence" is not something I would ever attribute to RC (I hope!). And I have to admit I've grown quite cool on this particular disc. Some of the political harangues are too obvious to glean much pleasure from. And I am still prudish enough to flinch at, "There is no God but God/And Ralph Mooney is his name" -- even if I can appreciate the spirit it is uttered in (there's yer 'spiritual coherence'!). And so on.
Bop Til You Drop has always been a "huh" for me. I eventually grew fond of it because a buddy who worked receiving with me at the bookstore was keen on it. But I associate the work with him, and not with Ry's better offerings. I'd plug Get Rhythm and Chicken Skin Music LONG before I did either of these discs, and a whole bunch more.
Smooth move with the gift cert, btw.
ReplyDeleteOh shit -- I did say that. Please forgive.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! This is why the blogs will never die, right here. : )
ReplyDeleteGot to find time to re-read all this and consider the different facets you’re trying to keep in view.
Occurred to me while listening to Bop that maybe I was hearing a hint of what’s to come in Lyle Lovett’s TX style a few years later. Google informs that, indeed, Lovett was a fan as a pre-career musician; and they now share long-time partnerships with John Hiatt (about whom, as with Cooder, I don’t know much of anything). Maybe the source influence is more apparent in other Cooder material? Something to come back to. Anyway, enjoying this.
I am fonder of Hiatt than I am of Lovett, but I'm not sure why I remain a little cool toward both. I find more to admire than to enjoy, I suspect, particularly when it comes to Lovett.
ReplyDeleteYou've got me reminiscing: I last saw Hiatt perform in the "Roots Rock Supergroup!" Little Village, at Massey Hall. I bought the tickets thinking this was exactly what I had moved to Toronto to "be a part of" -- concerts by Big Deal Performers who weren't finding their way to the Canadian hinterlands. The evening's audience was every bit as moribund as Donald Fagen accuses Toronto audiences of being. But then Hiatt -- and Cooder, and Lowe, and Keltner -- did not give us a reason to get on our feet until they concluded the show. At which point we stretched, retrieved our parkas and shuffled back out into the winter air. No doubt there were a few dragged-along dates who invited lengthy man-splainations re: why these four clods were, like, a rilly big deel. Alas, nobody asked me, as I was an un-dateable fool at that particular moment.