Ry Cooder's talent seemingly knows no bounds. As a session musician, he is Michelangelo's assistant, adding the last few touches of bright color to the master's work. As a soundtrack composer, Cooder has perfectly captured the mood of films like Crossroads, Streets Of Fire, and Steel Magnolias, among many others, with his instrumental prowess.
As a recording artist, Cooder's tastes run the gamut from rock and blues to country, folk, Tex-Mex, R&B and beyond, but he seems the most at home when taking on traditional blues material.
A Career of Many Colors
Cooder's lengthy career began in the mid-60s, when he formed a blues band with singer Jackie DeShannon at the age of sixteen. A couple of years later, he was a member of the short-lived but legendary Rising Sons band with Taj Mahal and Ed Cassidy, later of Spirit. The band recorded a single album that remained unreleased for 25 years, which only served to increase the band's reputation.
After the break-up of Rising Sons, Cooder chalked up an impressive stint as a session player, recording with artists as diverse as Captain Beefheart, the Rolling Stones, Little Feat, and Randy Newman, among others.
Cooder's solo career began in earnest with the 1970 release of his self-titled debut, an eclectic collection of mostly covers (with a lone Cooder composition) that allowed the young guitar prodigy to display his considerable slide-guitar skills on songs by Blind Willie Johnson and Sleepy John Estes.
Through the years, remarkable albums like 1974's Paradise and Lunch or 1979's Bop Till You Drop (the first album to ever be recorded digitally) would cement Cooder's reputation as an instrumentalist, leading to film work and enabling the artist to pursue his own unique musical vision.
Guitarist Ry Cooder
Photo by Susan Titelman, courtesy Warner Bros. RecordsRy Cooder's The UFO Has Landed
The UFO Has Landed is the first truly comprehensive Ry Cooder anthology, thoughtfully compiled by his son and musical partner, Joachim. Other than a long out-of-date "best of" collection from over 20 years ago, and a two-disc, decade-old collection comprised of a small portion of his soundtrack work, an updated overview of Cooder's career has been long overdue.
This two-CD set features some of the best of both the artist's solo work, circa 1970 through 2008, as well as a smattering of his fine film scoring. Nothing here is presented in chronological order, Joachim Cooder instead choosing to go with a more natural thematic sequencing rather than worrying about the calendar.
Two Hours Of Timeless Music
Some of the best material on The UFO Has Landed is found in Cooder's instrumental film work, while much of the rest is the artist's imaginative readings of classic blues and folk tunes by Leadbelly, Skip James, Woody Guthrie and Willie Dixon. Of the 34 performances spread across the two discs, only a dozen were written or co-written by Cooder; one of the musician's greatest strengths, though, has been his ability to artfully arrange traditional material.
The UFO Has Landed is packed with better than two hours of timeless music. Disc one jumps off with Cooder's cover of Johnny Cash's classic "Get Rhythm," the song featuring some spry fretwork and a sly underlying Zydeco rhythm. Cooder's reading of Woody's Guthrie's dustbowl anthem "Do Re Mi" choogles along like Levon Helm and the Band, complimented by the singer's Okie-sounding drawl.
The Willie Dixon tune "Which Came First," a shuffling blues tune, is expanded upon by Cooder with an impressive atmospheric performance created by the use of heavy harmony vocals, scattershot percussion and, of course, wicked guitarplay. A brand new, unreleased performance of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together" features Memphis legend Jim Dickinson on the piano and New Orleans legend Buckwheat Zydeco on accordion, and the song rocks like a tornado in a honky-tonk.
The original instrumental "Available Space" sounds like a lost Delta tune nevertheless, Cooder's slippery single-note leads sliding up and down the fretboard in front of a rhythmic beat. Cooder returns to Mississippi for a choice instrumental cover of Skip James' "Cherry Ball Blues," the guitarist scatting on the strings and rapping on the guitar body in the best Bentonia style.
The UFO Has Landed, Side Two
The second disc of the set features more of Cooder's brilliant film scoring and less blues-oriented material, but it is engaging nevertheless. The haunting "Paris, Texas" from the film of the same name is a disturbing instrumental that showcases Cooder's ability to create emotion with his playing. The traditional "Tamp 'Em Up Solid," with its lively picking, sounds like it could have been a Piedmont blues number originally, and Cooder does it well, adding another dimension to his immense playbook.
Cooder tackles the soul classic "Crazy 'Bout An Automobile (Every Woman I Know)" with aplomb, complimenting his rough vocals with soulful harmonies from Bobby King and Willie Green. "Feelin' Bad Blues," taken from the movie Crossroads (which reworks the myth of Robert Johnson), offers up some tasty slidework, Cooder creating a stultifying atmosphere of heat, humidity and clinging vines. The Memphis soul gem "Dark End Of The Street" is reinvented as a beautiful instrumental with delicate stringplay and no little emotion.
The Reverend's Bottom Line
The slam against Cooder has always been that he is a singer of average talent, and an unremarkable lyricist. These cavils may be true, but why does it really matter? The man's not a pop star or a diva wannabe, but rather a musical historian and archivist.
A skilled multi-instrumentalist, Cooder can swing anything with strings. As an artist, Cooder seems to be well aware of his limitations, and he plays to his strengths, which include a wry sense of humor and a keen eye for good songs, which he imbues with inspired performances.
Ry Cooder's The UFO Has Landed is a solid anthology of some of the guitarist's best material, and will appeal to fans of traditional blues, roots-rock, and Americana music alike. (Rhino Records, released October 28, 2008)
