Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Wall Street Windfalls---Ry Cooder "No Banker Left Behind"




Musician and composer Ry Cooder has some thoughts on the state of the American economy, from his album "Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down".

(from Sweet lyrics website) "Ry Cooder, born in Los Angeles in 1947, is a guitarist, composer and producer, though he gained his world-wide reputation primarily as a Slide-Guitarist.

"He played in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, and has also accompanied such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Randy Newman, John Lee Hooker and many others.

"Although influenced early on by blues, he became a pioneer in resurrecting the traditions of "World Music," a concept that was entirely new at the time. He devoted himself to Country and Folk music, Calypso, Hawaiian music, Gospel, Salsa, Jazz, Ragtime and Vaudeville.

"Ry Cooder has composed soundtracks for more than twenty films, among them Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas", and "The End of Violence."



Cooder: (from an interview in "Truthdig"). “No Banker Left Behind”—I said, that’s the voice of Uncle Dave Macon speaking to me. Uncle Dave, who was the very … at one time very well-known medicine show country musician—you’d have called him a banjo player—just the greatest, par excellence. And he had a great gift for making simple statements about life and about society. And this was also during the Depression; he was very popular at that time, made hundreds of records. And so he would take a thing like this and reduce it down to one little statement, and you heard this and you understood it completely, and by the end of the song you’d learned something. He was very entertaining; he’d dance while he played the banjo, and lived to be a very old man. So I thought, “No Banker Left Behind.”

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/exclusive_ry_cooders_no_banker_left_behind_20110526/?ln

8 comments:

  1. I've a feeling this will be remembered in the same vein as the protest songs from the Gilded Age.....

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  2. I agree Rosie. Glad you liked this one as well.

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  3. I think this might well be a sort of musical benchmark of these dreary economic times Will.

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  4. I think this may be a benchmark for revolutionary times...but what do I know? I'm only a cat......

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  5. They do, but are very modest about it. Ik ik ik!

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