Ry Cooder recommendation...


My knowledge of his work has never been more than his participation on Safe As Milk...but I recently heard a performance at some folk festival from 1979 on the radio & it was just him playing a slide guitar.
Can anyone recommend an album of the same stripped back style ? 

Thanks.
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As chazro said, Little Village is the group Ry had with John Hiatt, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. That same line up is also on Hiatt’s Bring The Family album, the first they did together. BTF has much better songs than does the Little Village album imo.

Ry is very serious about his recorded guitar sound, which is what led him to record his Bob Till You Drop album in the then brand-new digital format. He hated the sound of his guitar on that album. When he heard a Water Lily label (the great Santa Barbara California audiophile record company, owned by recording engineer Tavi Alexander) album, Ry asked "Why don’t my records sound this good?". He ended up doing an album for the label himself, the one mentioned by sfar and sbank above. The album sounds great, and will be of interest to World Music fans more than to others.

Ry is not only a great guitarist (though not much of a singer), but quite a musicologist as well. All his albums are deeply musical, and unlike any you’ve heard by anyone else. One of our National musical treasures!

Chazro is SO right about David Lindley! He played guitar for Jackson Browne for years, and his first two Asylum solo albums with El Rayo-X kick ass! The albums sound real good, too. David and Ry are pals, with great respect for each other.

Boomer's Story - good old blues/folk tunes. not fancy but real good playin'. I have not heard the 1990 import but the original version is great.
His first record "Ry Cooder" is also pretty terrific.  It's a collection that's kind of centered on depression era themes.  "One Meatball" and "How Can a Poor Man Survive" are typical examples.  In some ways, I prefer this one to Chicken Skin, which I recommended above and which remains IMO a classic.
@chazro @bdp24 Excellent and interesting observations, thanks. Cheers,
Spencer
Re: David Lindley & Rayo-X.  I own 3 studio LP's by them but they also recorded a killa live album!  I'd say it's one of the great  'unknown' live records.  Absolutely worth looking for!