Ry Cooder - 1984-08-04 - Cotati Cabaret, Cotati, CA

Ry Cooder
August 4, 1984
Cotati Cabaret, Cotati, CA
Soundboard recording from master cassette, very good quality
Available in both Lossless (FLAC) and mp3 (320 kbps) versions

Here's Ry a few years later, this time with a band (including Van Dyke Parks on keyboards, Jim Keltner on Drums, and even back-up vocalists), and featuring more of a Rock and R&B sound and style on many of the songs, which are taken primarily from his more recent Bop Till You Drop and Borderline albums, as well as new versions of older songs. A nice change of pace from the more bluesy shows, but whatever the style, he can really play.

Tracklist:
1. Little Sister
2. Smack Dab In The Middle
3. Go Home, Girl
4. If Walls Could Talk
5. Denomination Blues
6. How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?
7. Available Space
8. Goin' To Brownsville
9. Alimony
10. Money Honey
11. Down In The Boondocks
12. Why Don't You Try Me?
13. The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor)
14 Crazy 'Bout An Automobile
15. Never Make Your Move Too Soon
16. Down in Hollywood

Ry Cooder - guitar, mandolin, vocals
Van Dyke Parks - keyboards
Jorge Calderon - bass
Jim Keltner - drums
Bobby King - tenor vocals
Willie Greene, Jr. - bass vocals

mp3 files: Ry Cooder_1984-08-04_Cotati_mp3-part1.rar
             Ry Cooder_1984-08-04_Cotati_mp3-part2.rar

FLAC: Ry Cooder_1984-08-04_Cotati_FLAC.rar

Ry Cooder - 1979-07-28-29 - Cambridge Folk Festival, Cambridge, UK

Ry Cooder
July 28-29, 1979
Cambridge Folk Festival, Cherry Hinton Hall Grounds, Cambridge, UK
Audience and FM Broadcast recordings, very good quality
mp3 @ 320 kbps

Moving forward in the performing career of Ry Cooder, here are Ry's complete performances (3 short sets over 2 days) from the 1979 Cambridge Folk Festival. Although by this time, Cooder's recordings were moving in various different musical directions directions, encompassing Tex-Mex and Hawaiian music (Showtime-1977), Jazz (Jazz-1978), and Rock and R&B (Bop Till You Drop-1979, Borderline-1980), Ry sticks strictly to his roots of Folk and Blues for these mostly acoustic and wonderful performances at the Folk Festival. Drawing heavily from his 1972 and 1974 albums, Into the Purple Valley and Paradise Lunch, and his knowledge of old blues songs, Ry presents a clinic on folk-blues guitar-playing here. Although there is considerable repetition of songs among the 3 sets, it is still a delight to be able have all 3 sets and his complete performances at this wonderful event. [Historical note: Ry's 1979 album, Bop Till You Drop was the very first popular music album (after some limited release classical albums) to be recorded, mixed, and mastered completely digitally, and also yielded Ry's biggest hit to date, a cover of 'Little Sister'. It was also around this time that Ry began branching out into film scores and soundtracks, doing moody, atmospheric music for films such as The Long Riders (1979), Southern Comfort (1981), The Border (1982), Streets of Fire (1984), and Paris, Texas (1985), among many others to follow.] 

Tracklist:
Saturday July 28, Afternoon Set, 3 PM
1. Ditty Wah Ditty
2. Tamp'em Up Solid
3. Fool For a Cigarette
4. Crazy 'bout an automobile
5. Billy The Kid
6. Ax Sweet Mama
7. Hard Ridin' Papa
8. Stranger in My House
9. Comin' In On a Wing and a Prayer
10. Jesus on the Mainline

Saturday July 28, Evening Set, 11:15 PM
1. Programme Intro
2. Tamp'em Up Solid
3. Fool For a Cigarette
4. Crazy 'Bout an Automobile
5. Taxes on the Farmer
6. Great Dream from Heaven.
7. Billy The Kid
8. Denomination Blues
9. Bourgeois Blues

Sunday, July 29, Evening Set, 10:30 PM
1. Ditty Wah Ditty
2. Tamp'em Up Solid
3. Fool For a Cigarette
4. Crazy 'bout an automobile
5. Billy The Kid
6. Ax Sweet Mama
7. Taxes on the Farmer Feeds Us All
8. Great Dream From Heaven
9. Denomination Blues
10. The Bourgeois Blues
11. Jesus on the Mainline

New Links (07/05/20)
Ry Cooder_1979 Cambridge Folk Festival_7-28 sets.rar
Ry Cooder_1979 Cambridge Folk Festival_7-29 set.rar

Ry Cooder - 1974-05-16 - The Bottom Line - New York, NY

Ry Cooder
May 16, 1974
The Bottom Line, New York, NY
FM Broadcast Recording, good quality
mp3 @ 320 kbps

Here's some more from Ry Cooder, this time a solo show (just him and his guitar) from 1974, right around the time of the release of his fourth album, Paradise Lunch, although he only plays one song (Tattler) from the new album, preferring to perform a mix of his older songs and rare old folk and blues numbers. Check it out.

Tracklist:
1. Too Tight Blues No.2
2. FDR in Trinidad
3. Tattler
4. Crazy About An Automobile
5. I Can Tell By The Way You Smell
6. Kentucky Blues
7. One Meatball(Fade in)
8. How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live
9. Preacher
10. Vigilante Man

Ry Cooder_1974-05-16_NY_FM.rar

Ry Cooder - 1970-12 - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA

Ry Cooder
December 1970
Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA
Audience recording, average quality (distant vocals)
mp3 @ 320 kbps

Ry Cooder is another icon of 'Americana' and 'Roots' music (and just about everything else as well), a very talented multi-instrumentalist musician (most known for his slide guitar work, and generally considered among the greatest guitarists of all-time) and composer that has been following his own muse and direction in music for over 50 years. He has dabbled (quite expertly) in everything from folk, blues, soul, gospel, rock, Tex-Mex, and World Music, collaborated with all-stars such as Clapton, The Stones, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Little Feat, John Hiatt, Randy Newman, and countless others, and is also renowned for his unique film and TV scores and soundtracks. Cooder started in the 1960's as a session musician, and playing in various bands with Taj Mahal, Ed Cassidy, and Captain Beefheart, then worked with Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, and Little Feat, before recording with The Rolling Stones (1968-1970) for the Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers albums, as well as the Performance Film. In 1970, he released his first solo album, Ry Cooder, featuring his guitar work, primarily in blues stylings. His subsequent albums (such as Into the Purple Valley-1972, Boomer's Story-1974, and Paradise Lunch-1974, etc.) explored various musical styles and a mix of original songs and little-known old songs that he'd give new interpretations to. I had planned on posting a couple of classic bootlegs from radio shows of his early days, The WMMS 1972 broadcast from Cleveland, and the 1974 Ebbet's Field Denver Broadcast, or the 1974 Record Plant-Sausalito broadcast, but in looking into these shows, I found that each has recently been released on CD, and are being sold at Amazon and other retailers. Now I don't even know if these are legitimate releases, but they are being sold commercially, so I had to go back and look for other shows to post. So, instead, as a start to a series of posts featuring Ry Cooder, I have here a very early show from 1970 at the Fillmore West. Unfortunately, it is not that great a recording (actually, the guitar sounds fine, but the vocals are distant and faint, and the back-up band is also much in the background (and the band included Chris Ethridge on bass [fom The Flying Burrito Brothers] and Ritchie Hayward [Little Feat] on drums). Nonetheless, it is the earliest solo show by Ry available, and it is very interesting to hear.

Tracklist
01 Available Space
02 Do Re Mi
03 Band Intros
04 Alimony
05 Pigmeat
06 Goin' To Brownsville
07 Deep Elum Blues
08 How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live

Personnel:
Ry Cooder (guitar, vocals)
Steve Ferguson (piano)
Chris Ethridge (bass)
Richie Hayward (drums)

Ry Cooder - 1970-12 - Fillmore West_SF_CA.rar

The Civil Wars - 2011-08-21 - Rocky Mountain Folk Festival, Lyons, CO

The Civil Wars
2011-08-21
Rocky Mountain Folk Festival, Lyons, CO Audience recording, very good quality
Mp3 @ 320 kbps

While somewhat in the 'folk' music vein with T-Bone Burnett, here's The Civil Wars (who T-Bone produced as part of the Hunger Games OST album) in a show from 2011. The Civil Wars were a critically-acclaimed folk duo consisting of John Paul White and Joy Williams that attained remarkable success in a very short time, but then suddenly broke up just as quickly. Formed as a result of a chance meeting at a songwriter's workshop in Nashville in 2008, the duo made it big very quickly following one of their songs being featured on an episode of the TV series Grey's Anatomy ('Poison & Wine') and the release of a live album as a free download (Live at Eddie's Attic, which was recorded from only their second live show ever) in 2009. Their first full album release, Barton Hollow (2011), received much critical acclaim and commercial success, nominated for and winning multiple prestigious awards (Grammies, CMA, AMA, etc.), with their sound featuring sparse acoustic guitar and piano arrangements supporting delicate and 'achingly' beautiful vocal harmonies. They continued, working with T-Bone Burnett and Taylor Swift for the Hunger Games soundtrack (which won another Grammy), toured, and then began working on a follow-up album in 2012, as well as working again with T-Bone Burnett on a soundtrack for a documentary film (A Place at the Table). However, somewhere along the line, something went terribly wrong with the duo, as by the end of 2012, they abruptly quit and cancelled their current tour due to "internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition" with no other explanation. Their second album was subsequently released in 2013 (The Civil Wars), but no more touring or appearances, and White did not participate in any promotion of the album. The album was successful (and won another Grammy), but by early 2014, the group announced that they were permanently disbanding, again offering no further explanation. Here, though, is the duo in better days, near the peak of their acclaim and popularity, following the Barton Hollow album, in a fine-sounding audience recording. They were especially known for their live shows, and this shows why. So, here now, enjoy the beautiful, but short-lived sounds that were The Civil Wars.

Tracklist:
1. intro
2. Tip of My Tongue
3. Forget Me Not Not
4. From This Valley
5. 20 Years
6. You Are My Sunshine
7. I've Got This Friend
8. Barton Hollow
9. Falling
10. Oh Henry
11. I Want You Back
12. Birds Of a Feather
13. Disarm
14. Billie Jean
15. My Father's Father
16. Dance Me To The End Of Love
17. C'est La Mort
18. banter
19. Poison & Wine

 Link Updated 11/7/21
Civil Wars_2011-08-21_LyonsCO.rar