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Amazon.co.uk Review
This 1976 effort contains some of Cooder's most compelling work and finds him re-exploring some of the fundamental influences on a musician known for remarkable eclecticism. Most notable are "Always Lift Him Up", "Smack Dab in the Middle", and a beautiful adaptation of "Stand By Me" (which includes Flaco Jimenez on accordion.) The album opens and closes with covers of Leadbelly, namely "The Bourgeois Blues" and (you guessed it) "Goodnight Irene". Also notable is a fine reworking of the traditional number "I Got Mine". --Wayne Pernu
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The rediscovery of a rich indigenous American musical history didn't begin with O Brother Where Art Thou, though it gave a timely boost to an undervalued genre. Somehow the blues and folk archives of Alan Lomax and Harry Smith, and music handed down through families over generations and kept alive, needed to be woven into a whole that was both true to a tradition and yet contemporary. Among the honourable few who attempted such a synthesis were the Band, Neil Young and Ry Cooder.
Ry Cooder toured his Chicken Skin Music band after making this album and if you saw it you probably will remember a Whistle Test concert for UK television in 1977. Ry Cooder had assembled an extraordinary orchestra, uniquely combining the Tex-Mex accordion mastery of Flaco Jiminez with the Hawaiian slack key guitar maestros Gabby Pahinui and Atta Isaacs to perform traditional minstrel and gospel songs, soul ballads, Leadbelly and Ray Charles covers and standards such as the wonderful He'll Have To Go, and Chloe.
The result is a skilful blend that is not dry or academic but designed for dance and entertainment
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I first heard this on tape in 1988 when it was already 14 or so years old. I loved it immediately and still love it today. Cooder is a master of anything with strings and frets, and he has assembled a great bunch of musicians around him for this album of familiar and occasionally less familiar American folk and blues standards. 'Goodnight Irene,' 'He'll have to go,'and 'Stand by me' are probably definitive versions, though 'yellow roses' does not really work for me. Still, you can forgive one slightly poorer track on an album on which most are outstanding. 'Always pick him up' may be a bit maudlin and even sexist by today's standards, but it's still a brilliant song.
I'v heard most of Ry's other albums from this period, and while they are all good, this one remains, for me, the best of the bunch.
Scottish Amazon users might remember that track 2 'I've got mine' was used in Tennents Lager TV promotion in the late eighties. But don't let it put you off - the music is much better than the lager!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Ry Cooder is probably best know to contemporary music buyers as the manbehind the Buena Vista Social Club, which was an unexpected runaway hit afew years back. Well, I say unexpected, but not so if you've been payingattention to his output over the last 30 years. This CD is a simmilar ideato Buena Vista - get a bunch of less-well know but very talented musicians- and play through some old, and somtimes long forgotten tunes. To thisend he has included the fantastic Flaco Jimenez, plus two greats ofHawaiian music: Gabby Pahinui and Atta Isaacs.
The tunes on this album may be familiar to many: Leadbelly's "BourgeoisBlues" and "Goodnight Irene", plus the King/Leiber/Stoller classic "StandBy Me". There are some that will be less familiar, with "Always Lift HimUp" first recorded by the wonderful Blind Alfred Reed standing out. Thisis an accomplised, ecclectic and hugely enjoyable CD.
The tunes on this album may be familiar to many: Leadbelly's "BourgeoisBlues" and "Goodnight Irene", plus the King/Leiber/Stoller classic "StandBy Me". There are some that will be less familiar, with "Always Lift HimUp" first recorded by the wonderful Blind Alfred Reed standing out. Thisis an accomplised, ecclectic and hugely enjoyable CD.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Ry at his finest
This is a very fun CD made by a group of musicians who were clearly having a good time. Recorded in 1976, right before Ry's inspired Jazz, which would take him in another... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dr Jazz
Flaco's got a squeeze box he wears on his chest...
Ry Cooder is a remarkable figure in post-war American music. In truth, only Taj Mahal really gets close to him in terms of exploring the borderlands of different musical styles. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Og Oggilby
My favourite Ry Cooder album
This is the most essential of a list of essential Ry Cooder albums. If you only ever buy one of his CDs, make it this one. Read more
Published on 19 Sep 2007 by Carole
Ry at his best
Ry Cooder at his best. A superb CD - one of my absolute favourites. 'He'll have to go' - better than the original. 'Yellow Roses' - a wonderful rendition. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2007 by L. Erskine
Just Cooder magic.
I've been a Cooder fan for almost 20 years - I reckon this is the best. Totally different from anything I've hear before. Music is mesmeric. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2000
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