Ry Cooder - Chavez Ravine 2005

01 - Ry Cooder- Poor Man's Shangri-La
02 - Ry Cooder- Onda Callejera
03 - Ry Cooder- Don't Call Me Red
04 - Ry Cooder- Corrido De Box Eo
05 - Ry Cooder- Muy Fifi
06 - Ry Cooder- Los Chucos Suaves
07 - Ry Cooder- Chinito Chinito
08 - Ry Cooder- 3 Cool Cats
09 - Ry Cooder- El U.F.O. Cayo
10 - Ry Cooder- It's Just Work For Me
11 - Ry Cooder- In My Town
12 - Ry Cooder- Ejercito Militar
13 - Ry Cooder- Barrio Viejo
14 - Ry Cooder- 3Rd Base, Doger Stadium
15 - Ry Cooder- Soy Luz Y Sombra

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Ry 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 CD 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. --Don McLeese