RY Cooder is a musical excavator, digging up lost songs to record or helping resuscitate other musicians, notably the Cuban veterans revived by the Buena Vista Social Club album.
Now, in his first solo recording for 20 years, he absorbs his Cuban experiences into an ambitious concept album telling the story of the lost Latino community of Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles, displaced to make way for the Dodgers' baseball stadium.
If the narrative is at times opaque, the sleevenotes help - but it's the music that tells this tale of corruption, pathos and politics. Half in English, half in Spanish, the album mixes songs from the time with Cooder compositions, embracing R&B, Latin pop and jazz. It is brave in scope and enthralling - a soundtrack for a film yet to be made, a piece of social history turned into sinuous, delightful music.
Updated: 16:36 Wednesday, June 15, 2005
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