1. Drive Like I Never Been Hurt
2. Waitin' For Some Girl
3. Johnny Cash
4. Can I Smoke In Here?
5. Steel Guitar Heaven
6. Ridin' With The Blues
7. Pink-O Boogie
8. Fernando Sez
9. Spayed Kooley
10. Filipino Dance Hall Girl
11. My Dwarf Is Getting Tired
12. Flathead One More Time
13. 5000 Country Music Songs
14. Little Trona Girl

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Intelligent music making at its best
If you like the recent crop of character fuelled narrative records from Ry, then this is for you.

Paints wonderful images with his lyrics and often profound emotions with his music. A true new world genius.

He left the slide in his pocket
This is a very good album indeed, a SONG album, Maybe Ry sorta felt he didn't need to whip out his slide this time around, (it makes a brief show on 'PINK 'O BOOGIE') sort of imagine a Beach Boys album without any harmonies and you get the idea. Ry's singing is very strong and confident although a little affected at times, even apeing Mick Jagger on the Stones-like 'WAITIN' FOR A GIRL'. '5,000 COUNTRY MUSIC SONGS' will probably in time be covered by every musician/singer in Nashville. The production is first class and sounds great relaxing in your favourite chair on your own by lamplight. The killer track is 'LITTLE TRONA GIRL' sung by Juliette Commagere with Ry in 'Duane Eddy mode', this is so touching and lovely it could make a stone statue weep...absolutely beautiful and a brilliant closer to a real fine collection of songs...miss this at your peril !.

Worn Vista
I'm afraid I was sadly disappointed in the latest offering by Mr. Cooder. Perhaps being British, and not in possession of the novella which apparently explains what the album is all about may have something to do with my lack of enthusiasm. Mr. Cooder is not a singer, and someone in his entourage should tell him so. His voice has a very limited range, and his singing appears to be strained. We are given two talking "songs" out of 14 on the album, which is an indication that too much of the Cooder vocals is not a good thing. In Chavez Ravine, he found some fine songs,the best of them written by others, and some fine singers, and assembled a package which was a delight. But since he has decided to do all the composing and all the singing, on Buddy as on Flathead, the magic has,I'm afraid, disappeared. The Johnny Cash song sounds as if it was made up in a bar on a Saturday night -indeed it's almost disrespectful, whilst his obsession with J.Edgar Hoover resurfaces
unnecessarily. And why ration the wonderful accordion player to one song? Arranging new sound combinations, and finding good tales and ,crucially, characterful singers connected to those tales, are what Mr.C. does best,in my opinion.

Keep em' coming Ry !!!
These days, Ry Cooder is a musical novelist and I happen to believe that his format of album making is quietly revolutionary. Here is another great example of what a concept album should be like. Mysterious, Iconic, Intruiging and totally musical.

In an age where you select a few tracks of an album for a download, it's quite incredible that we have an artist who makes you realise what a lazy musical culture we live in.

It's time to wake up People !!! Music is still alive ...

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