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Nearly A Little Village - Guitar-Bass-Drums
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner at The Great American Music Hall
Guitar - Bass - Drums
Great American Music Hall, San Francisco
Thursday October 2 & Friday October 3, 2008
The chance to see Ry Cooder in concert was one of the unexpected highlights of the journey to San Francisco for the Hardly Strictly bluegrass Festival.
As many commented throughout these two sold out charity evenings, Cooder just doesn’t do many gigs these days. Last year he played some dates with Mavis Staples to promote her album We’ll Never Look Back that he produced but this might have been his first show in San Francisco for 20 years.
This rare appearance was obviously also tantalising for Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris who were apparently in the audience - and for Elvis Costello who was a special guest on stage.
Guitarist Ry Cooder making his first appearance in around 20 years Thursday at the Great American Music Hall qualifies as a major event to a small but select circle, who snapped up $100 tickets to the two-night fundraiser.
Thanks to an alert listener to Off The Record I was tipped off about the event and duly forked out the US$100 a ticket for each night. (Thank you so much Rob Pemberton). It seemed like a cheap price to pay to see Cooder for the very first time and in the end it turned out to be a bargain.
Cooder’s daughter-in-law Juliette Commagere, opened each evening with a10-piece band that included Cooder's son, Joaquin, on drums. In effect, it was almost an album launch for Commagere’s own forthcoming album, Queen’s Die Proudly, and maybe one of the most prestigious support gigs of the year. Having sung, and co-written ‘El U.F.O. Cayó’ on Chavez Ravine, she featured that song from that album along with her own originals which were impressive.
The evening was organised by keyboard player Austin ‘Audie’ de Lone, whose son Richard suffers from the rare genetic disorder, Prader-Willi syndrome which stunts development and leaves sufferers unable to care for themselves. De Lone was once a member of Eggs Over Easy, an American band that is credited with having helped to start the whole British pub rock scene in the early ’70. Thus, the association with Nick Lowe, who would have met him while playing in Brinsley Schwarz. Much later, de Lone toured with Lowe as part of Elvis Costello’s band. 
Austin deLone
Last year Costello helped launch the Richard de Lone Special Housing Project, and appeared again Thursday and Friday, singing with de Lone and his daughter Caroline, performing ‘Sulphur To Sugarcane,’ and later joining for the encore with the featured trio.
As de Lone’s wife Lesley pointed out, a Ry Cooder concert these days is almost as rare their son’s disease! Billed as Guitar-Bass-Drums, he was joined by Nick Lowe on bass and guitar and drummer Jim Keltner (who, I am pleased to say was so cool that he wore his sunglasses throughout the evening). Basically, this was the Little Village line-up minus John Hiatt, the outfit that recorded on Hit’s classic Bring The Family and released what I have always thought was an under-rated self-titled album back in 1992.
Cooder’s visionary archiving of American music styles in the late ‘60s and ‘70s is the stuff of legend, his move into soundtracks kept his career alive while his work with the Buena Vista Social Club brought Cuban music to a mass audience around the world. In the past five years, with three albums of different styles under his own name, Cooder has been prolific.
Now for the first time in my life I was to see him play and, while he was content to defer to Lowe and his song for much of the evening, his playing is stunning.
In horn-rimmed glasses and casual shirt, Cooder looked anything but a rock star. He seemed content to fit in behind Lowe, as they opened with ‘A Fool Who Knows,’ the only Little Village song they were to perform. 
Ry Cooder
"There's going to be train wrecks," explained a laughing Lowe. "There will be car crashes. But that can be entertainment gold." Of course, some people’s car crashes can be other’s dents.
It was fairly obvious on Thursday that the musicians were feeling their way and were occasionally tentative, especially Cooder. Keltner seems to have an unerring beat and rhythm no matter what is happening! But all of this made the performance more spontaneous and enjoyable, rather than slick and over-rehearsed.
Largely, the night belonged to Lowe as front man – as he said, the unelected spokesman of the group. Lowe’s last album At My Age was a superbly mature and adult recording and his voice remains mellifluous and clear.
Like most in the audience I was prepared to enjoy the Lowe material immensely and await the thrill of anything that Cooder was prepared to do.
We didn’t have to wait long. After ‘Gai Jin Man,’ Cooder launched into ‘Fool For A Cigarette’ and the audience exploded. A little later he explained that he had heard the Vice Presidential ‘de-bate’ and had re-written the verses to Alfred Reed’s ‘How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?’ (written in 1928) by adding some lines about Sarah Palin and also how relevant the song remains.
On Friday evening Cooder played ‘This Is Hip,’ explaining that as Little Village they had recorded the song with John Lee Hooker and improvising a lyric that had him playing the part of the Boogie Man and imagining what he might have sung. It was powerful and effective.
Both nights featured a version of ‘Kidnapper,’ a fantastic Louisiana classic originally recorded by Jewel & The Rubies. It is hard to say who might have chosen this, Cooder or Lowe, because they are both steeped in the history of Americana, but it was a great choice and one you wish they had recorded. 
Nick Lowe
Lowe deftly switched between bass and guitar, telling an amusing anecdote about how the title of the band didn’t really reflect what it really did and tackling ‘A Man In Love,’ ‘The Beast In Me,’ ‘Soulful Wind’ ‘Without Love,’ ‘Losing Boy’ and ‘Half A Man And Half A Boy’ (‘That’s my new favourite song,’ said Cooder on Friday). Then he added Arthur Alexander’s ‘Lonely Just Like Me,’ to close the show.
I am not sure how many times I shook my head in admiration but as I looked around the room I am certain most other people shared that same experience. The magical thing about Cooder’s playing is that he somehow gets inside the rhythm of any song he plays and makes it his own. I can well imagine Lowe wishing he could go back into the studio to re-record all his songs with Cooder’s lead guitar.
The encore on both nights started with Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.’ Thursday continued with a lovely version of another Arthur Alexander song, ‘You Better Move On.’
On Friday we were treated to a fantastic reading of ‘The Tattler’ – from Cooder’s great album (but aren’t they all?) Paradise & Lunch. It was a song I never thought I would hear him play and probably marked the highlight of both evenings for me.
Elvis Costello bounced on stage to join them for the Louvin Brothers’ ‘My Baby’s Gone’ – and then so were they.
But the memories will linger for years!!
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