From time to time I need to listen to traditional rock music and mostly I come back to Ry Cooder. I like his kind of music that is deeply rooted in the songs and mood of Woody Guthrie. From his early days as a well known session musician over his first albums with eclectic song collections to his steps towards to world music and soundtracks he always made the songs he played on unique.
Almost 50 years ago he celebrated another kind of music with his Chicken Skin Revue a melange of classic folk songs and new ones played with Mexican and Hawaiian musicians and it shows all the abilities a guitar player could have. Listening to these songs again he is one of the most influential and underrated guitar player ever.
No, this not about the song with the same name by Siouxsie and the Banshees. It is my favorite track from the new album by Pretty Lightning, a band from Saarbrücken, Germany. Christian Berghoff and Sebastian Haas built the duo that moves since a couple of years between psychedelic blues, fuzz and jangle pop.
Now they released their second instrumental album. They describe the album as an imaginary walk through a dark and mysterious wood where can hear the sound of 60's psyche, krautrock, delta-blues and drone. Sometimes the beauty of the soundtrack from Paris, Texas and Ry Cooder shimmers through their songs.
A few days ago I found in my vinyl collection Ry Cooder's live album Show Time from 1977 again. I have to admit that I always had an open ear for the music of his music. From his early days as a well known session musician over his first albums with eclectic song collections to his steps towards to world music and soundtracks he always made the songs he played on unique. This album was recorded in the period when he celebrated his Chicken Skin Music a melange of classic folk songs and new ones played with Mexican and Hawaiian musicians and it shows all the abilities a guitar player could have. Listening to these songs again he is one of the most influential and underrated guitar player ever and I will go on listening to his soundtracks and collaborations with Wim Wenders later.
After six years an old favourite of mine released a new record. Ry Cooder made on Prodigal Son the same mixture as often before. A few of new songs and a great bundle of traditionals and forgotten songs. Cooder is still an observer about what happens round the world and finding the right classic blues records about what he has to say. From his first self titled record back in 1970 until now I followed him and his music. And I always loved how he played his bottleneck guitar.
It is now years ago since I've featured Ry Cooder at this place. He's known for his slide-guitar playing and transforming American native music into nowadays. I followed him since he released his first works on LP and especially when he introduced me into Hawaiian music with Chicken Skin Music. I also liked his music he made to several soundtracks He was in collaborations with a lot of famous musicians during the last decades and his influential guitar playing is still one of the best I know. There would be a lot of more songs to feature than this little ones and it doesn't matter which song it is. I am sure you will find your own song by him.
This is not a cover version in the classic way. But HMHB made a unique version at a Peel-session years age based on the old Leadbelly song. Not taking the words one by one and adding an accordion to their sound. I always loved HMHB and their humour in music making cover versions with new lyrics in their very own style. It is a classic song that sounds great in almost every version ever made. Here are some examples of what could be interpreting this old song.
Ry Cooder is one of the only guitar players that is able to play most of the styles of the last decades. Most of his songs are based on traditional Rhythm and Blues but I like his versions of classics long gone by. Sadly I've never seen him live on stage but I love to hear his songs from time to time. Get Rhythm is a song played by a lot of musicians during the last 40 years and I think this version is one of the best ever made. So enjoy this kind of chicken skin music.
I've to admit that I always had a fondness to Johnny Cash and it was not easy to be responsible to it in the early 80s when a very different kind of music ruled our place. Not till Rick Rubin produced his American Recordings 20 years ago he got the credits he used to deserved. This series would not be complete without a song by Johnny Cash. Of course it is not a real twangy sound but the picking electric guitar was one of his trademarks. Get Rhythm was covered by many other artist and there are good versions of it in the internet - especially by Ry Cooder. I found this early recording a few days ago and you can take it as a dokument of musical history.
When I was investigating for this post I found a remix of this song. Never thought that it is possible to make a version of this song. But it works and it is not too bad.
This version is taken from the biopic of Johnny Cash Walk The Line. And even Joaquim Phoenix is able to make a good version of this song.
Get Rhythm is a classical track written by Johnny Cash and covered by Ry Cooder on his record with the same name in 1987. Mr. Cooder ist one of my favorite guitar players of all time. He is at home in almost all styles of music and that might be the reason why he was often booked in the seventies and eighties as a session musician. It is a very good album that might be featured this weeks.
This year brought a big change into my life because I decided to quit school for a education to a bank clerk. The principal reason that I have decided on the education was the fact that they get me paid for this. Another reason was also to get more independence of my parental home. Looking back to this days I think this was the first time a decision changed my way of living completely. From this time I changed my outfit: Now dressed in suit and tie instead of wearing jeans and T-shirts during the daytime. This was the hardest thing for me to get used to this dresscode. The first thing I did when regular work was over I changed my clothes as quick a possible. It has used a long time, until I have got used to my new clothes style and could also carry this with pleasure.
In 1976 it became clear that the musical development has come nearly to the shutdown. Big bands like Led Zeppelin the puff went out and they were only an imitation of themselves. Period of disco music has left the top behind and it seemed that acts like the Welsh songstress Bonnie Tyler will take over control. This was the background when I first time came to London. I have given myself a few days of vacation, before I start my education. And I was surprised what I saw there. Young bands playing in small clubs extremely fast and short songs, mixed with an rebellion attitude, wearing rotten clothes and needles in their ears and cheeks. Never heard that sound before and from this time on I was infected to the new sounds that would come the next years.
Some good and after the years remarkable songs were hard to find but I remember this ones:
Chicago: A simple ballad that still sounds well today
Steve Miller Band: One of the last rebelling of the hippies
Climax Blues Band: Return of the funk
Elton John & Kiki Dee: Summer tune
The Damned: Punk starts
Remarkable albums published in 1976:
Steve Miller Band - Fly like an eagle True sound of the ending hippie decade but great songs
Boz Scaggs - Silk degrees Great musician with one of the best songs of love gone wast on it (It's over)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - dto First album with his remarkable sound
Dr. Feelgood - Stupidity Amazing live album filled with rhythm and blues
Stevie Wonder - Songs in the key of life Still a monument of an album
Graham Parker - Howling wind Pure rhythm and blues 'Don't ask me questions'
Stanley Clarke - School days Pure fusion, very hip these days
Flamin' Groovies - Shake some action Retro sound, every song another style
And what happened in the rest of the world:
The pol-pot regime proclaims a new constitution for the Democratic Kampuchea - trying to recapture the country to a stone age communism million people had to die. The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Fraction begins in Stuttgart, Ulrike Meinhoff (member of the Red Army Fraction) hanged in an apparent suicide in her prison cell. West Germany. Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank. Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Peròn and was replaced by the dictatorship of general Videla. Soweto uprising begins in South Africa. The Ramones made their first 'professional' performance at CBGB. Another mass murder dies: Mao Zedong in China.
Remarkable movies in this year: Rocky, All The Presidents Men, Carrie, Taxi Driver, Marathon Man.
I decided to feature Ry Cooder and his album Chicken Skin Music for the year 1976. Ry Cooder is one of those guys always referred to as a 'guitar player's guitar player'. He is all that and more, having played as a sideman on dozens (if not hundreds) of other artists' records. Like almost all of Cooder's recordings, the point on this record is not the guitar but the music. Lots of guitar on this album to be sure, but also wonderful songs drawing on just about every aspect of American music: blues, soul, jazz, Tex-Mex. Also a very cool cover like Leadbelly's 'Goodnight Irene'. Since I heard this songs the first time I deeply liked his combination of classic American music as well as Tex-Mex and Hawaiian.
