11 August 2008
CD of the Week - Ry Cooder
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Ry Cooder is in fine form on his latest CD, I, Flathead, his humorous and loving vision of California of the ’50s and ’60s, a world of Western Swing lovers, unsuccessful songwriters, carnies and drag racers.
On this, the 3rd of his California trilogy, Cooder’s voice is rich and confident, whether singing or speaking, and his liner notes, in the persona of the record’s nominal author, Kash Buk (and the Klowns), are as surreal and funny as anything out there. The music is spare, held down by three fine drummers, and Cooder’s guitar is on the mark with a big tip of the hat to Hollywood emigrant Merle Travis. The songs are well-written vignettes of the colourful characters who came from elsewhere to make Southern California the land of a million dreams. Ry’s song Steel Guitar Heaven manages to evoke the maverick world of early Californian Western music with nary a steel guitar played. This tribute to this unique time and place is so subtle and real that you can smell the knotty pine panelled country music clubs, the petrol fumes and the California eucalypts.
Presenter
Lucky Oceans
Producer
Lucky Oceans
