Customer Reviews

Paradise & Lunch

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

All of Ry Cooder's music is exceptional. All of it. So picking his "best" record is a bit like picking Beethoven's best string quartet. Or Bob Dylan's best song. But this album is special. It's the kind of record that you mention to that new friend you discover whose taste is broad, deep and solid, who would recommend a record to you and you would just buy it unquestioningly because of the respect you have for the person's discriminating taste, and that person will look you in the eye with a knowing respect and say, "You know about 'Paradise and Lunch'?" And it will turn out to be on both your top 10 lists. Most people don't know about this record, but every time I meet that rare new person who really knows music but whose taste is not focused on just one area (you know, the guy who has every album Cecil Taylor made, but who has never heard of the Kronos Quartet), this one is on their short list of all-time favorites.

If you are not sure whether you will like it, ask yourself whether you like old country blues, old gospel, calypso, street-corner a capella singing, or any pre-commercial American roots music. No? OK, forget it then. But if you do, all those influences are on this record and more, produced and performed in an original, infectious way that will keep these tunes in your head for decades (they've certainly been in my head that long.) In fact, I probably would not put it on my list of 10 records to take to a desert island, like some other reviewers mentioned. I don't have to, because every song on the album has long been burned into my synapses, and I can recall them all note for note any time I want. You might find the same happens to you. Tamp 'em up solid, so they won't come down.

I first encountered Ry Cooder in 1979 when I bought the first edition of The Rolling Stone Record Guide and despite my near poverty level pay as a high school teacher, proceeded to buy every 5-star album in the book. When I reached the C's and read about music archivist Ry Cooder and his masterpiece "Paradise and Lunch," I rushed out and bought it. It was everything they said it was. Stylistically, it may be all over the map, but every song is a classic. While I have since purchased all of Cooder's music, "Paradise" was the one that I went out and repurchased on CD. If I could only take ten albums to a desert island, this would definitely be one of them.

I wore out my original record of this long ago. It's my favorite Ry Cooder album, and I've got most of 'em. Why? Top notch, soulful playing and singing, and quirky songs that'll make you laugh! ("I got thrown out of church, for talkin' 'bout Diddy Wah Diddy too much...")It's not commercial stuff, but in a perfect world it would be. Great slide work and fine gospel backup singing. Guaranteed to make you feel good and put a smile on your face! A musician's choice!

I must have burned out 3 vinyl copies of this album since discovering it on a friend's turntable in his Oregon cabin in '74. The CD is equal to the vinyl version, and like someone else commented, this would be on my top ten to take to a desert island.

If "feel good" music actually exists, this is it. Several hundred listenings may even cure cancer.

"Diddy-Wah-Diddy" also features my dear friend, the late, great New Orleans pianist and singer, Ronnie Barron.

"Paradise" is one to treasure, to share with friends. A milestone.

I half-expected I wouldn't see this album available through Amazon. It's not the kind of music you'd expect to be commercially successful (which is the listening public's loss), and it's been around forever. I would call Paradise & Lunch a class out of sheer reflex, but here it is: standing the test of time.

This is an exceptional album in several dimensions. The musicianship is subtle and impeccable. The song selection is intriguing in a way that would please a historian (I mean that in a good way). Cooder knows there's American music stored in our inner ear that deserves to be heard again, and he says as much in the liner notes. He's gone into the hollers and mountains and brought out generations of some hard living in music.

What he's laid down on the tracks is not research: it's telling stories that carry the grit and blood of the people who lived them. It's soul music: the joy of deep sensations recounted. The energy of "Tamp 'Em Up Solid" for me captures the feel of a train winding its way through the mountains; "Mexican Divorce" just feels like a sad day on the Gulf. My personal favorite: "It's All Over Now." If you've never heard a group of backwoods singers holler and harmonize at the same time, this one is a treat.

Play the whole album with your eyes closed. It is down home. In every track, the sense of peanut shells on the floor and cigarette butts strewn across the parking lot is not far away.

Now that I have your attention, I would just like to say read David Bell's review herein and you will have a good idea how I feel about this album. Only I cherish it more. I have a cabin in the woods where I go to contemplate the world, and this CD is in the creaky old CD changer I keep down there. I play it over and over. I play it when I have the tribe over for a special dinner. I play on a sun dappled afternoon when I just want to drift away to a kinder time. I play it when I want to share something special with old friends. Ry Cooder seems like one of the kindest people on the planet, and his musicianship is only barely this side of heaven. I like, sort of, his new much acclaimed Buena Vista Social Club work, but I wish he would make another album/CD like this one for his long suffering long appreciative fans. "Into the Purple Valley" is almost as good, and some folks would say better. Anyway, I have never written a review, but this musical jewel deserves all the veneration we can muster.

Way back in 1983 or '84, a rock music show here featured footage of a live-in-the-studio performance from Ry Cooder and those fabulous backing vocalists, presumably made during the sessions for this album.

The next day at work, it was the only thing people talked about. And if ever I mention it to a few former colleagues I still see, their eyes light up with the memory. I had already bought P&L on the strength of a Rolling Stone recommendation, so I was doubly ecstatic when I saw those clips ('If Walls Could Talk' and probably 'Tattler' and 'Jesus On The Mainline').

This is a terrific journey through American blues and gospel, with immaculate playing and an infectious sense of fun. The aformentioned 'Walls' is very cute, 'Tamp 'Em Up Solid' literally chugs along, 'Tattler' is gorgeous, but for me 'Fool For A Cigarette' is the standout: it's so cheerful it makes you almost proud to be a smoker, and that's saying something.

You know you're getting old when you read a review that says "I didn't know who this guy was...."
Back in the 1970s Ry Cooder was a god to anyone interested in decent music (which meant music that wasn't bubblegum pop or disco). Yes, even out here in distant Australia we knew who Ry Cooder was. He toured in 1978 with David Lindley and packed them in in Sydney, Melbourne etc. Those of us who went to the gigs remember the Hawaiian shirts and the amazing music.
So what about this album? It's essential. If you don't own it then go out and get it now. If you owned it on vinyl...well, get it again! It was wonderful when it came out and it's still wonderful.
I know that Ry became disillusioned with the music business (who can blame him? Today we get American Idol and they call it music. Jesus!!) but he made this album and a host of others just as good. I love the music he made and to be able to hear this again on CD is something I am grateful for. Do your sons and daughters a favour and buy this CD. Play it loud and long. They'll understand.

Well, the packaging IS cool, with reproductions not only of the LP sleeve and disc label, but also the inner paper sleeve. However, the sound is a disaster. The entire disc has been given an extreme treble boost, which creates distortion and completely changes its character. On many songs the percussion (especially cymbals and snare) dominates the mix, making a song such as "Tamp 'Em Up Solid" sound almost like cocktail jazz. The old CD sounds muffled in comparison, but it - like the rest of Reprise's domestic CD reissues - was true to the original LP sound. Warner Brothers engineers (and Ry) had wonderful ears, and I'm sure the mix we heard in 1974 was close to the one they wanted. This is like listening to a band from inside the snare drum. I don't know how someone listening to this album for the first time would react to the new mix, but I can't handle it. Painful and disappointing.

This is "hip" beyond the sense of the word.
Never outdated, always fresh.

Something that cannot be said 'bout 99 percent of the crap that has come out over the past 15 years.

Pour your favorite adult beverage, and listen to Ry speak out about Americana.

You gotta love it.

Buy it.