Ry Cooder’s Chavez Ravine lovingly documented the plight of a lively, working class community in Los Angeles, which disappeared unable to withstand the machinations of big city politics, communist hysteria and racial indifference. Cooder’s follow up My Name is Buddy continues on with similar themes. While Chavez Ravine documented real lives, Cooder takes a turn of whimsy with an anthropomorphic cat named Buddy as the central character (inspired by a photo Leadbelly with a cat’s head superimposed on his). Buddy sets out with just a suitcase in his hand. Along the way Buddy meets Lefty Mouse and Tom Toad. Their journey takes them across an almost forgotten America. A time (taken from the CD booklet) of “labor, big bosses, farm failures, strikes, company cops, sundown towns, hobos and trains.â€?
My Name is Buddy is a tribute to the working class. Against the backdrop of crooked cops, union busting, racism, electoral chicanery and a ravenous pig name J Edgar (wonder who could that be?), Cooder weaves an American fantasy articulated by Buddy, Lefty and Tom Toad. The first few tracks of the album (Cooder wrote all the songs apart from two traditional tunes), to set up the narrative, are dusty, American folk. Cooder then starts to stretch things with some blues, R&B, Tex-Mex and jazz. Like Chavez Ravine, Cooder uses the musical idioms of the times to tell the story.
And while Cooder evokes the politics of the times he does so with a message for modern times. Cooder wears his politics, like his music, on his sleeve. There is a rage borne of the frustration and powerlessness fighting the apparent situation that the democratic ideal of voting neither represents freedom or real participation in the political process. The tale of Buddy, Lefty Mouse and Tom Toad is about individual freedom, free speech and the need to stand up to injustice and oppression.
One little musical niggle that others have mentioned around the interwebs is that Cooder seems to have little interest in laying down the hot and tasty slide guitar licks anymore. The feeling is that his fans are being short changed by his refusal to showcase his chops. But I get the impression that Cooder simply doesn’t care anymore about his music as being a showcase for his guitar. He is more interested in telling stories and his guitar serves the music, not the other way around.
Cooder’s choice of some friendly animals to articulate his theme does not detract from the storytelling of My Name if Buddy. The concept works as Cooder is mining a rich heritage of an era of social and musical change. He deftly weaves strands of Americana into a tale of a bygone era. An era that shouldn’t be ignored as the politics of then resonate with the politics of now.
This is a great album, despite the lack of slidey Paris, Texas-type guitar. This is more of a Woody Guthrie type package and appropriate to a revisiting of the 1930s in order to measure our march to the past – politically. If you’re interested, my own review is here: http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/2007/06/cd-review-ry-cooder-my-name-is-buddy.html
Sounds great Shaun – I loved Chavez Ravine.
Top post, Shaun, thanks. The last actual CD that I actually bought in an actual shop was Tex, Don and Charlie’s All is Forgiven, but I think I have to have this one as well.
Shaun, can’t wait to get My Name is Buddy. What a magnificent musical odyssey Ry Cooder has taken us on over the years, from his early days with Taj Mahal and the Rising Sons, to Mexico and Texas with Chicken Skin Music. Then there was his flash-chordin’ slide virtuosity on the album that featured “Blue Suede Shoes”, that the “interweb nigglers” yearn for anew.
Cooder was in Africa(Mali)with Ali Farka Toure and Clarence Gatemouth Brown in the Nineties making the memorable, Beyond Timbuktu. Later came The Buena Vista Social Club(Cuba), and Chavez Ravine, his brilliant Story Album of the plight of Californian Hispanics in the Fifties, and now Buddy and pals take us to visit the lives and struggles of poor Americans a generation earlier.
Cooder is a gifted musicologist and perhaps an even better story teller. Ken Burns documented on film his Trifecta Americana: The US Civil War, and the histories of Jazz and Baseball. One helluva legacy, one might observe. Ry Cooder is doing something similar with his albums. History with music. He has helped keep roots music alive and thriving in America long after The Band played its Last Waltz. He has continued to work with lifelong friends like percussionist/drummer, Jim Keltner, and Flacco Jimenez, the chicken-skin accordionist. That kind of loyalty does not have a price. It goes way beyond a filthy buck.
Ry’s son, Joachim, has followed the family tradition, in the way that Arlo and Ben followed Woody. While the music of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Ry Cooder lives, Americans will always have acoustic access to their story, Joe Hill will never die, and Buddy will always be able to find a feed and a safe place to kip.
Mike, wonderful review. Enjoyed every word of it.
Praise be to Ry Cooder. Love him. Chicken Skin, Paris Texas, Meeting by the River, Buena Vista, and on it goes…
Got My name is Buddy about a week ago, haven’t played yet, will tonight. Watched Paris Texas again last night then played the CD after, great way to spend some time.
Must be the year for feline themed albums. Donald Fagen recently released one called ‘Morph the Cat’, which I think is pretty good.
Haven’t heard Ry’s latest offering, but always been a fan of his work.
Thanks Shaun – great review. Cooder’s not just recording history, there’s a sense about in the States that he may well be laying down the sound track for a whole new wave of radicalism.