Ry Cooder – My Name Is Buddy
March 13th, 2007 by rui
Anyone who enjoyed Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions album, or Sufjan Stevens leftfield take on Americana should welcome the arrival of Ry Cooder’s ‘My Name Is Buddy’ this coming Monday. After almost two decades of immersing himself in world music and collaborative projects, this new seventeen tracker is akin to suddenly finding you’re celebrating five birthdays at once. With a cast of old and new friends – Jim Keltner on drums, Flaco Jimenez on accordion, Van Dyke Parks at the piano and guests such as The Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney and, lo and behold, US folksters Mike and Pete Seeger.
Superbly packaged, the album is a return to top form then from the man who led me, as a teenager, towards a quantum leap in my own listening habits, rabidly diversifying beyond the likes of Sparks, 10cc and Average White Band towards Woody Guthrie, Blind Willie Johnson, Tex Mex and Conjunto, Hawaiian music, gospel, Bahamian oddball Joseph Spence, Leadbelly, Arthur Alexander, Howard Tate and a host of the quality side west coast sessioneering.
The new recording, made in LA, is rich in gems, and puts him right back centre stage – not that he was ever off it, more that he was playing journeyman in more uncharted terrain for large chunks of his career. Cooder is still out there, speaking up for the rights of the ordinary man, but in this case, the concept on ‘My Name Is Buddy’ revolves around the flight of a cat Buddy, who openly flaunts his red credentials, and whose travels across America broadly mirror the sentiments of Woody Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads, as he and his cohort Lefty, the activist mouse along with the blind amphibian preacher Rev Tom Toad, encounter all manner of America frisson en route.
If the concept is too surreal to grasp at this stage, the music is top notch, arguably his best ever. ‘Sundown Town’, featuring the wonderful dual black vocal attack of Bobby King and Terry Evans, is powerful funked up gospel blues, served up gritty and raunchy as it comes. The Pete Seeger and Carter Family inspired ‘The Dying Truck Driver’ is pure timeless Americana trucker hokum and the lo-fi ‘Red Cat Til I Die’ has a filthy blues lucre dripping from its pores. ‘My Name Is Buddy’, performed with his son Joachim on percussion, joyfully follows suit with an almost laissez-faire nonchalance.
‘Farm Girl’ floats along with a chilled downhome Keltner beat propelled by Roland White’s mandolin and the sweetest guitar from the man himself. A rural opus for the modern age. The ending track is pure gospel soul with Cooder’s fragile voice, not generally recognised as his best asset but here managed and controlled perfectly, as proceedings are brought to a close with a valedictory for troubled times.
Cooder was and continues to be a walking musical curator, but it’s all done with a style, a lightness of touch and oodles of humour too. This man is important, and if you don’t know about his work, there’s plenty of choice and variety of styles and a wealth of musically history to dip into. He’s the man who is alleged to have written the distinctive guitar riff that propelled the Stones’ ‘Honky Honk Women’ up to the top of the charts. He also played in Captain Beefheart?s ‘Safe As Milk’ band. Then there’s the cinematic grace of Paris Texas and Southern Comfort and his many film scores, not overlooking his marvellous Buenta Vista Social Club album, or his work with V. M Bhatt and Ali Farka Toure. There’s also a host of early solo albums – ‘Ry Cooder’, ‘Into The Purple Valley’, ‘Boomers Story’, ‘Paradise and Lunch’ and ‘Chicken Skin Music’ in particlar, that were out there on their own as chronicles of a man on a mission – uncovering and re-interpreting American folklore, which currently sound as vital as they did in the 70s and early 80s.
And now there’s this. Cooder returns in startlingly impressive form to reclaim centre ground as a curator of the fascinating American roots music scene, and his timing is impeccable, just as his enthusiasm and sense of fun is palpable.
Pete Lawrence / March 2007
