The Ry Cooder Timeline - Part 19 (1994-95). Next episode out on January 16: The End of Violence (1997)!
Episode 31 out tomorrow! The Buena Vista Social Club was by far Cooder's biggest commercial success. At the time, he probably thought it was business as usual – working with a bunch of interesting and skilled musicians from a different musical culture, as he'd done so many times before. But this time he hit the jackpot. The importance of the album and the subsequent documentary cannot be overstated. It is the most popular recording of Cuban music in history, and it opened up the island's culture to the West as never before.
This is episode 18 of the Ry Cooder Timeline: 1992-93. Our next podcast episode will be the Buena Vista Social Club. Out on December 19.
Episode 30 out tomorrow: Last Man Standing (1996). Cooder's last collaboration with Walter Hill was a remake of a Japanese classic, 1961's Yojimbo. Hill and Cooder let loose once again, creating a dark, nihilistic action film starring Bruce Willis as the man with no name. Though very unconventional and focused almost exclusively on atmosphere, Cooder's score is surprisingly diverse and varied. - In this episode we also talk about the 1995 Family Tour with David Lindley and Cooder's session work in the mid-90s.
Episode 29 out tomorrow: A Meeting By The River (1993) & Talking Timbuktu (1994)! - For Cooder, the mid-nineties were a period of astonishingly numerous world music collaborations. Between 1993 and 1995 alone, he worked with Indian string legend V.M. Bhatt (A Meeting By The River), Ali Farka Touré of Mali (Talking Timbuktu), Nenes and Shoukichi Kina of Okinawa (The Great Music Experience), The Chieftains of Ireland (The Long Black Veil), and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan of Pakistan (Dead Man Walking). So in this episode we take a trip around the world (kind of) and tell the story of all these very exciting collaborations.
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.
