Nonesuch; Release date: March 6, 2007
The Deal: Ry Cooder returns to his roots
The Good: An album of newly penned Depression-era narratives done in audio shades of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly would seem at best anachronistic, and at worst a calculated cash-in on the tail-end of the No Dep gravy train. But Ry Cooder’s followed his own muse quite literally around the globe, and the only way these Grapes of Wrath tales don’t resonate in Bush’s Amerika is if you’re a Fox News robot. Cooder is probably best-known for his Buena Vista Social Club and Ali Farka Toure collaborations. But he began his career in the early ’70s with covers-heavy roots records featuring the likes of Sleepy John Estes, Bix Beiderbecke, Skip James and obscure public domain nuggets filtered through Tex-Mex rave-ups, dustbowl blues, slack-key Hawaiian guitar and Tin Pan Alley. Cooder’s quirky arrangements and astounding guitar chops kept the whole enterprise from sounding like the dry history lesson it might otherwise have been. Buddy returns to these musical formulae, but this time they’re predominantly Cooder originals that just happen to be about J. Edgar Hoover and Hank Williams, labor unions and strike-breakers, segregation and migrant workers. Long-time collaborators like accordion wiz Flaco Jimenez and drummer Jim Keltner join Pete Seeger — an obvious touchstone — in making this concept record about a hobo cat, a left-wing rodent and a gospel-singing toad one of the strongest of Cooder’s long, storied career.
The Bad: We could always use more slide guitar.
The Verdict: Declare Cooder a national treasure.
This article appears in May 9-15, 2007.
