The Ry Cooder Timeline - Part 17 (1990-91)
New episode out tomorrow: Geronimo – An American Legend (1993). Cooder's eighth movie with director Walter Hill is about the last resistance of the Native Americans against the superiority of white civilization. It's very serious and pretty dark. For the first time, Cooder composed something like a classical film score, a real tapestry of sound.
Here's part 16 of the Ry Cooder Timeline: 1989. More to follow soon! New podcast episode out on November 7: Geronimo – An American Legend (1993).
Episode 26 out now: Little Village (1992)! At a point in life when bands usually break up, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Jim Keltner and Nick Lowe decided to form one: Little Village. A few years earlier they had played together on Hiatt's Bring The Family, and now they made another great album, but one that sounded different for a number of reasons. It wasn't a real hit, but not a disappointment either, just another ingenious effort from four very special musicians. This episode also takes a brief look at Cooder and David Lindley's 1990 tour.
We're back for our third season! Episode 25 focuses on 1989's Johnny Handsome, another underrated but truly spectacular Walter Hill film. We also take a look at several other productions, including Pecos Bill, Tales From The Crypt, The Ghost Of Faffner Hall, several session albums, and the great Bobby King and Terry Evans debut, Live And Let Live! Out on September 26.
Hello everyone, I hope you're having a great summer. Here's our next installment of the timeline (1988). The podcast will return in late September. Look for 15-20 episodes in our third and final season, starting with Johnny Handsome (1989).
Episode 24 out now! We end our second season with what can be called Cooder's last classic album: Get Rhythm. As the title suggests, it's all about energy, speed and fun. It presents us with Cooder's very own world music and should have been a real chart breaker. Instead, it was just another solo effort with disappointing commercial results. Its release in 1987 was framed by two tours. We listen in on the famous Santa Cruz show, which spawned several bootlegs and a concert film. And we also uncover some very raw recordings from the '88 European tour.
New episode out today: Bring the Family (1987). - Cooder was not involved in the original development of John Hiatt's Bring The Family, nor did he act as producer, as he did a year later with Bobby King and Terry Evans. Nevertheless, this album is more significant than most of his previous session work and became something of a blueprint for the next phase of his career after Get Rhythm from the same year. It would be a period in which solo albums would no longer play a role, and film scores would gradually become less influential. Instead, a phase of more personal collaborations began, marked by work with long-time friends and ever new excursions into the realm of world music. Bring The Family was also the starting signal for the band Little Village, which was to be formed five years later.
The Ry Cooder Timeline - Part 14: 1987. New audio episode will be out tomorrow.
Part 22 coming up: Crossroads (1986). - Robert Johnson was one of the most important blues guitarists of all time. Cooder didn't cover any of Johnson's songs on his early albums, which is kind of a surprise when you think about it. But in the mid-eighties, a project came along that more than made up for the wait. Crossroads, another Walter Hill film, was a wonderful journey into the history of the blues. It led back to the roots of the Johnson legend, and - interestingly - back to Cooder’s roots as well. It required him to make a whole variety of music, from juke-joint stomps to an electric guitar duel.
Episode 20 out tomorrow: Alamo Bay! 1984 was a busy year for Cooder. Not only did he produce the soundtracks for Paris, Texas and Streets of Fire almost simultaneously. He also ended up juggling both jobs with Alamo Bay, Louis Malle's drama about the clashes between Texas and Vietnamese fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. Cooder saw the movie as a simple working man's story in the tradition of John Ford. His goal was "a Chinese cowboy thing without an overt ethnic statement.” Alamo Bay has a great soundtrack album with references to Paris, Texas, The Border, and even Southern Comfort.
The Ry Cooder Timeline: 1985-86. Next podcast episode ("Alamo Bay") will be out on April 25!
