I'm no Ry Cooder expert, but the soundtrack to Paris Texas ain't bad. Cheap, standard issue old pressing should do it.
Ry Cooder recommendation...
My knowledge of his work has never been more than his participation on Safe As Milk...but I recently heard a performance at some folk festival from 1979 on the radio & it was just him playing a slide guitar.
Can anyone recommend an album of the same stripped back style ?
Thanks.
Can anyone recommend an album of the same stripped back style ?
Thanks.
52 responses Add your response
2nd on the John Hiatt album. Ry's solo on "Lipstick Sunset" is just incredible. His playing is not about "flash", but taste, economy, and lyricism. Ry is sort of the anti-Hendrix ;-). A fun Ry album is Bop Till You Drop, from 1979. The first digitally recorded Pop album, it turned Ry off to digital. |
Have a listen to "Meeting by the River," an improvised collaboration between Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. It won a Grammy for Best World Music Album. The two met only an hour before it was recorded. It was unplanned and unrehearsed. Brilliant playing, brilliant interaction between two master musicians. |
Many of Ry's albums are pretty eclectic. He liked to do old depression-era stuff, gospel, calypso, and world music. He sings the lead vocals on much of his music and, while an adequate singer, his singing is not his strong suit. There is a 2-CD set of his soundtrack work called Music By Ry Cooder which includes a lot of the solo slide guitar that you're referring to. |
I like that many of his LPs each go in a different direction. Paradise & Lunch is my fav, sorta straight folk rock including nice cover of Stand By Me. Chicken Skin Music features Hawaiian guitar masters & a beachy feel. Jazz is awesome sonically, early big band Broonzy, CottonClub flavor. Bop Till You Drop, straight 50s inspired R 'n R. Paris, TX soundtrack for that tumbleweeds blowing down the highway, pour me another tequila craving. Meeting By The River - Like if George Harrison never returned from India. Can't leave out grammy winning Buena Vista Social Club, old school Cubano/Latino party for sure. Cheers, Spencer |
I have most of his records and am a big fan. The most unusual soundtrack he participated in would have to be 'Crossroads' where he 'duels' with a young Steve Vai! A good record that should've been great IMO is by the band Little Village, an unknown 'supergroup' consisting of Cooder, Johm Hiatt, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. Cooder's great, but you're a hop, skip, and a jump from listening to his frequent bandmate (from the old days); David Lindley! Once you listen to him and his band Rayo-X, you'll be digging for all of their output!!!;) One of the best things (for anybody on Audiogon) about Cooder's work is that it's all recorded impeccably. |
As chazro said, Little Village is the group Ry had with John Hiatt, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. That same line up is also on Hiatt’s Bring The Family album, the first they did together. BTF has much better songs than does the Little Village album imo. Ry is very serious about his recorded guitar sound, which is what led him to record his Bob Till You Drop album in the then brand-new digital format. He hated the sound of his guitar on that album. When he heard a Water Lily label (the great Santa Barbara California audiophile record company, owned by recording engineer Tavi Alexander) album, Ry asked "Why don’t my records sound this good?". He ended up doing an album for the label himself, the one mentioned by sfar and sbank above. The album sounds great, and will be of interest to World Music fans more than to others. Ry is not only a great guitarist (though not much of a singer), but quite a musicologist as well. All his albums are deeply musical, and unlike any you’ve heard by anyone else. One of our National musical treasures! Chazro is SO right about David Lindley! He played guitar for Jackson Browne for years, and his first two Asylum solo albums with El Rayo-X kick ass! The albums sound real good, too. David and Ry are pals, with great respect for each other. |
bdp24, Leave it to you to bring us all down to reality. .. JUST KIDDING! I ALWAYS appreciate your knowledgeable insight! I am quoting from the back jacket of my "A Meeting By The River" lp/Analogue Productions... monitoring was done with the inclusion of an ET tonearm/SOTA Star Sapphire tt. It always brings great pleasure to mention the inclusion of the ET arm in regards to any great recording' production! Little Village is still a great demo lp!! Cheers! |
Been a huge fan if RC since about 1974, no bad albums and few like one another. Older stuff is a hoot; funky, country-ish, blues-ish, comical. He is hysterical! Chavez Ravine and I Flathead are more recent records which show his musical genius. Other perhaps under the radar albums definitely worth owning are The Slide Area, Borderline, Chicken Skin Music. I think I own most every commercial record and/or cd he's recorded. IMHO one of the top modern American musicians of our era. Hard to go wrong with Ry on the slide. |
A real rare one that is pretty bare bones instrumental music is the soundtrack to The End of Violence. Now most all of Wim Wender's films have great soundtracks (Until the End of the World is a stupendous mix of tracks, enhanced with overdubs and short cello pieces). The thing is there was a pre-release version I have that is quite different from the official release. Very moody and brooding sort of atmospheric stuff that is actually quite a challenge to play loud on a good hifi. It's not 100% great but most of it is quite excellent. Both of these qualify as audiophile imho. |
When you hear the accordion on any of Ry Cooder's songs it is Flaco Jiménez, the absolute master of that instrument and one of Ry's most important collaborators. He doesn't get nearly the recognition he deserves. |
