Ry Cooder: Chavez Ravine : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Having brought vintage Cuban music to the ears of millions in the U.S. with 1997's Buena Vista Social Club and its spinoffs, Ry Cooder has made a sort of homecoming with Chavez Ravine. Today, Chavez Ravine is known as the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but once it was a vital Chicano community with a look, a feel and, most of all, a sound of its own. Here Cooder has called upon some undervalued legends of East L.A. -- Lalo Guerrero, Don Tosti and Thee Midniters frontman Little Willie G. -- to tell the story of a lost neighborhood and the ugly corporate greed and politics that tried to bulldoze it from history. With a core group of musicians including drum giant Jim Keltner, son Joachim Cooder and bassist Mike Elizondo, Cooder has delivered a remarkable song cycle that tells the story -- a sort of brilliant and flavorful film-noir history lesson that samples the past freely, from Latin swing and a cappella Costa Rican folk to an unlikely sample of Dragnet's Jack Webb. Among the high points are a groovy cover of Leiber and Stoller's "Three Cool Cats," and "Onda Callejara," an inspired collaboration from Little Willie G. and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. Like his pal Randy Newman, Cooder has found his own unique and magnificent way to say "I Love L.A."