Ry Cooder - Get Rhythm 1987

01 - Ry Cooder- Get Rhythem
02 - Ry Cooder- Low - Commotion
03 - Ry Cooder- Going Back To Okinawa
04 - Ry Cooder- 13 Question Method
05 - Ry Cooder- Women Will Rule The World
06 - Ry Cooder- All Shook Up
07 - Ry Cooder- I Can Tell By The Way You Smell
08 - Ry Cooder- Across The Borderline
09 - Ry Cooder- Let's Have A Ball
This album provides an eclectic mix of tunes that demonstrate the depth and breadth of the brilliance of Ry Cooder and his accompanying musicians. As a huge fan of Cooder, I listen to this more than anything else he has done. To these ears, not one filler track here. Great fun.
The title song, Get Rhythm, written by Johnny Cash, is a hooky melody backing a rollicking dialogue between the narrator and a shoe shine boy. Synergistic mix of slide guitar and accordion.
Low--Commotion is a funky, upbeat instrumental, with a great mix of electric, acoustic, bass and slide guitar.
Okinawa, written by Cooder, seems a mix of Hawaiian music and rock and roll in a World War II veteran's ode to his bygone days on an island in the China Sea, site of a famous battle in that war. Cooder's guitar and Flaco Jimenez's accordion trade off lines of the melody.
On 13 Question Method, an obscure romance "how to" written by Chuck Berry, Ry does his best singing/guitar playing imitation of the master in a worthy tribute.
In Women Will Rule the World, Cooder as Mexican lounge singer gives a tongue-in-cheek warning to men that they will one day be subservient to the fairer sex. Jimenez's accordion shines here.
All Shook Up takes Elvis's classic and gives it a complete overhaul, turning up a totally different song with heavy emphasis on the rhythm section.
I Can Tell By the Way You Smell praises, in rhythm and blues, the clues to life's mysteries provided by the olfactory senses. Cooder has a sense of humor.
Across the Borderline is the masterpiece here. A mostly acoustic ballad from the point of view of a Mexican immigrant who finds that El Norte is not the golden land of opportunity it seemed from the other side. Cooder shares the poignant lead vocal with actor Harry Dean Stanton.
Let's Have a Ball is a sexually explicit pronouncement of lust that features Cooder's mastery on electric guitar. A wild romp, but not for the genteel.
Start to finish, this one shows that no matter the style of song, Ry Cooder's got rhythm. I never tire of it.

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