Ry Cooder - Chavez Ravine

Double LP reissue with book

Let's start with the hands, Ry Cooder's hands. They're large, expressive: hands you could see wrapped around a guitar neck, or in the act of making things, says the Los Angeles Times.

Cooder uses those hands to help recount the saga of "El Chavez Ravine," a 1953 Chevy pickup he commissioned to be rebuilt in 2007 in the style of a vintage ice cream truck and covered with an elaborate mural, by the artist Vincent Valdez, depicting the eviction of Mexican American families from the neighborhood that is now home to Dodger Stadium.

The same story inspired Cooder's 2005 album Chavez Ravine, the first installment in his so-called "California Trilogy" (the others are My Name Is Buddy [2007] and I, Flathead [2008])

"Cooder might have been tempted to bill this as the Chavez Ravine Social Club. After generating such popular and critical interest in Cuban music of decades past with the Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder applied a similar approach closer to home, extending his fascination with the Mexican-American culture that flourished in 1940s and '50s Los Angeles. The result is an album that sounds like it's aspiring to be something far more ambitious: a DVD, a theatrical production, even a time machine. Cooder and a cast of seminal Chicano artists present a song cycle that conjures an era of UFOs, the Red Scare, and political machinations that leveled the Chavez Ravine barrio to lure the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

"In his celebration of a vibrant community that doesn't know it's on the verge of displacement, Cooder enlists Thee Midnighters vocalist Little Willie G. (whose songwriting collaboration with Los Lobos's David Hidalgo on 'Onda Callejara' highlights the album). and Pachuco patriarchs Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero, with the latter reviving his dancefloor favorite 'Los Chucos Suaves.' The accordion of Flaco Jimenez adds conjunto flavor to 'Barrio Viejo.'

"Throughout the album, Cooder plays a typically tasteful, understatedly virtuosic guitar, assumes a variety of vocal roles — including a cool Chet Baker homage in duet with pianist Jacky Terrason on 'In My Town' — and provides the provocative social context." — Amazon.com

Side 1

Poor Man's Shangri-La

Onda Callejera

Don't Call Me Red

Corrido De Boxeo

Side 2

Muy Fifí

Los Chucos Suaves

Chinito Chinito

3 Cool Cats

Side 3

El U.F.O. Cayó

It's Just Work For Me

In My Town

Side 4

Ejercito Militar

Barrio Viejo

3rd Base, Dodger Stadium

Soy Luz Y Sombra

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