Ry Cooder: Ry Cooder : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Somewhere in the sheaves of paper that Reprise sent out on Ryland P. Cooder's first solo album there occurs a phrase which goes something like "this album is not so much as re-interpretation of the existing body of blues literature as it is a contribution to it." That would at first glance, seem the Pompous Phrase of 1970, if it weren't for the fact that it is true Naturally. Cooder is no Robert Johnson, but he isn't trying to be his music is too laid back and mellow to try and compete with Johnson't frantic flight from his darker side.

What Cooder is is the finest, most precise bottleneck guitar player alive today, as well as reviver of the lost art of blues mandolin, which he plays almost as well as Hammy Nixon used to. The album is not all as successful as it might be, however, and that is a shame. Whoever chose the material could have given it a bit more thought "One Meat Ball" is' an utter disaster (Cooder's voice is certainly not suited for such material) and "Do-Re-Mi" is given the full (i.e. ghastly) L.A.-country treatment which pretty much obscures its impact.

But the masterpieces on the album make it all worthwhile. They include pretty much all of side two, especially the bottleneck tour de force "Dark Was the Night" and the incredible "Pig Meat," which sounds like it might have been scored by Max Ernst by way of Louis Armstrong. Other standouts are "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live," "Alimony, and "Goin' To Brownsville," which makes me hope he includes Sleepy John Estes' "Expressman Blues" on his next album.

And while we're waiting for it let me say that if you've ever played guitar, you'll go for this album in a big way, and if you've never played one, maybe Ryland'll inspire you.