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