It's nothing to do with the harp, but I had to get this off my chest. I first heard of Ry Cooder when I saw Caged Heat in 1978. I bought one of his albums then, but it bored me, and I got rid of it.
Then we get to the Buena Vista Social Club. If he "discovered" them, then he did the world a service, but, frankly, he ruins the movie because he sits there like Jabba the Hutt in a Hawaiian shirt drowning out the others with over-loud, badly played slide guitar, which, thankfully was toned down on the CD.
But he really crops up everywhere, so that I wonder if I haven't given him a fair chance.
What do you think. Is he a schmuck, or has he made some masterpiece that I should listen to carefully?
I really love his instrumental stuff - especially the Southern Comfort and Paris Texas Soundtracks and a lot of his collaborative work. Other solo stuff is hit and miss for me
I don't know a lot of his stuff, but I bought the sound track to Paris Texas, which I love.
However, I was a bit miffed when I found out that it was an almost exact copy [the main theme] of a 1926 recording - I forget by whom - called 'Dark Was The Night', which I heard a while after buying the album.
I didn't mind that he'd copied it; what I felt was a bit schmucksy was that I couldn't find a credit to the original artist on the album.
I no longer have that copy. Maybe they've had the decency to remedy the problem now.
EDIT: I just had a quick look for that song he took the theme from; it's by Blind Willie Johnson. Maybe Mr Cooder gave him the credit, but I didn't find it.
---------- 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchen; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty' - Frank Zappa
http://www.youtube.com/user/SlimHarpMick
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 3:31 PM
"Dark was The NIght" is one of the tracks on the album and I just checked - on my vinyl copy it is given full credit to Blind Willie Johnson. It was on the centre label.
I never realised it wasn't an original, so thanks for pointing that out - the original is wonderful!
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 3:42 PM
I hope MrC won't try to sue me. I really couldn't find it when I looked. Probably me just being a bit twirpified.
EDIT: I seem to remember looking on the inset, not the disc itself. Doh ! ---------- 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchen; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty' - Frank Zappa
http://www.youtube.com/user/SlimHarpMick
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 4:17 PM
Well, for me Ry has sometimes been great--sometimes not. I like him as a singer as much as slide guitar--but you gotta consider this cut to really judge him. . .
Ry Cooder was for a long time the first name on guitarists lips for slide guitar. In recent years he has been overshadowed by Derek Trucks who is taking the slide beyond the traditional blues stylings. Much more so than Ry has ever done.
Derek I am sure would no doubt cite Ry as an influence on him at some point.
The movie Crossroads featured Ry playing guitar fairly heavily.
In my opinion his best pieces from it were "Feeling Bad Blues" and "Walking Away Blues" the latter featured the great Sonny Terry on Harmonica.
Other harp duties in the movie were played by Frank Frost and John "Juke" Logan.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 11:41 PM
In my opinion Ry Cooder is one of the top of the line blues/rock/Hawaiian/zydeco and so on musician of this planet. He's known more for the Buena Vista Social club thing than for his previous work.
I remember a concert done back in the 80's that has been broadcast in France (one of my first contact with the blues music) with the "Moula Banda Rhythm Aces" It was amazing to see how much he mingled Gospel music with a quartet of singers, accordion (zydeco style) a deep overdrived blues guitar....
I've all his albums and none of them are under 9 out of 10
I don't know much about him ; I see him as a great musician with a dream career, he played with top bands like the Rolling Stones and Captain Beefheart, and great artists all over the world, but never putting himself in front. In a way, he's the perfect sideman and studio shark, he does what he likes and doesn't have to deal with the bad sides of celebrity.
In that famous battle from the movie "Crossroads," Steve Vai plays BOTH of those lighning-fast solos, although Cooder does the amped-up slide at the very beginning. Check out the entry for "Crossroads" (disambiguation: the movie).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(1986_film)#Music_and_Guitar_Duel
Last Edited by on Jul 15, 2009 3:49 AM
You're right, Adam--thanks for pointing that out--I always kind of thought the non-slide stuff sounded wrong for Ry--but never really followed up on it. . .
I read somewhere that, in order to make Jack Butler's attempt at Mozart seem real, Steve Vai would play it right, then take a drink, and repeated until he was drunk enough that he messed it up.
