Ry Cooder - Chicken Skin Music CD UDSACD2161
Bookended by a couple of Leadbelly compositions, Chicken Skin Music sports a collection of songs ranging from the aforementioned tracks to the charming old minstrel/medicine show number "I Got Mine" and the syncopated R&B of "Smack Dab in the Middle." Also included is Appalachian songwriter Blind Alfred Reed's "Always Lift Him Up," complete with a Hawaiian gospel tune, "Kanaka Wai Wai," woven into the instrumental section. As he explains in the album's liner notes, Cooder understands the connection between these seemingly disparate styles. This is not merely eclecticism for its own sake. Chicken Skin Music is probably Ry Cooder's most eccentric record since his first, but it's also one of his most entertaining.
The remastering for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab was done by Shawn R. Britton.
Tracklist
1 The Bourgeois Blues
2 I Got Mine
3 Always Lift Him Up / Kanaka Wai Wai
4 He'll Have To Go
5 Smack Dab In The Middle
6 Stand By Me
7 Yellow Roses
8 Chloe
9 Goodnight Irene
