Ry Cooder - My Name Is Buddy (2007)

"My Name Is Buddy" is a social-political concept album by Ry Cooder. Cooder has described it as the second in a trilogy that began with "Chávez Ravine" and concluded with "I, Flathead". The album is packaged in a small booklet that includes a brief story and drawing to accompany each song. Both the songs and the stories relate tales from the viewpoint of the characters, Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse, and Reverend Tom Toad. The liner notes ask listeners/readers to join them as they "Journey through time and space in days of labor, big bosses, farm failures, strikes, company cops, sundown towns, hobos, and trains... the America of yesteryear."
On "My Name Is Buddy", Ry Cooder revisits, in a new set of original material, the sound and feeling of the "dust bowl songs" he first explored more than three decades ago on such groundbreaking albums as his self-titled 1970 debut and 1971's "In The Purple Valley". In fact, he's joined by old friends like pianist Van Dyke Parks and drummer Jim Keltner who were with him at the start of his extraordinary, ultimately globe-spanning musical odyssey, which has yielded him six Grammy Awards to date, several more nominations, and perennial acclaim. My Name Is Buddy is also a journey, a phantasmagorical rendering in music, words and pictures of the travels of three unlikely cohorts - Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse and Reverend Tom Toad - as they meander through the west "in the days of labor, big bosses, farm failures, strikes, company cops, sundown towns, hobos and trains...the America of yesteryear." For this allegorical tale, Cooder marshals all his remarkable skills as a producer, arranger, songwriter, soundtrack composer and musicologist. (The Christian Science Monitor recently dubbed him "a modern-day Alan Lomax.") My Name Is Buddy recalls Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory - that is, if it had been enacted by the articulate animal characters of Walt Kelly's classic comic Pogo. Cooder conjures up the dark shadows of an earlier time to wryly comment on the political and social issues of the present. As back-story to his songs, Cooder has written short stories for each one and they're accompanied by evocative illustrations from noted San Antonio-based painter and muralist Vincent Valdez, all of which are included in a specially designed package.

Track List:
01. "Suitcase in My Hand" (Ry Cooder) - 2:54
02. "Cat and Mouse" (Ry Cooder) - 5:02
03. "Strike!" (Ry Cooder) - 5:07
04. "J. Edgar" (Ry Cooder) - 2:37
05. "Footprints in the Snow" (Traditional with new lyrics by Ry Cooder) - 3:07
06. "Sundown Town" (Ry Cooder, Joachim Cooder) - 2:57
07. "Green Dog" (Ry Cooder) - 7:33
08. "The Dying Truck Driver" (Ry Cooder) - 4:56
09. "Christmas in Southgate" (Ry Cooder) - 3:27
10. "Hank Williams" (Ry Cooder) - 4:09
11. "Red Cat Till I Die" (Ry Cooder) - 3:08
12. "Three Chords and the Truth" (Ry Cooder, Joachim Cooder) - 5:02
13. "My Name Is Buddy" (Ry Cooder) 3:12
14. "One Cat, One Vote, One Beer" (Ry Cooder, Joachim Cooder, Jared Smith) - 4:15
15. "Cardboard Avenue" (Ry Cooder) - 4:33
16. "Farm Girl" (Ry Cooder) - 3:54
17. "There's a Bright Side Somewhere" (Traditional with new lyrics by Ry Cooder) - 4:49

Released: March 6, 2007
Genre: Americana, Country Colk, Bluegrass, Blues, Honky Tonk
Label: Nonesuch
Length: 1:10:42
Produced By: Ry Cooder
Production Assistant: Aisha Ayers
Recorded at: Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA, Orange Stella Studio, Santa Monica, CA, Beacon, NY & Chateau Martín, Los Angeles, CA
Additional Recording By: Sunny D. Levine at Orange Stella Studio, Santa Monica, California and in Beacon, New York; Martin Pradler at Chateau Martin, Los Angeles
Mixded at: Don Smith and Martin Pradler at Sound City Studios
Mastering By: Martin Pradler

Personnel:
Ry Cooder - Guitar, Vocals
Juliette Commagere, Roland White, Bobby King , Terry Evans - Vocals
Buddy Red Cat - Guitar, Vocals
Roland White - Mandolin
Flaco Jiménez - Accordion
René Camacho, Mike Elizondo - Bass
Joachim Cooder, Jim Keltner - Drums
Mike Seeger - Fiddle
Van Dyke Parks, Jacky Terrasson - Piano
Paddy Moloney - Tin Whistle, Bagpipes
Jon Hassell - Trumpet
Lefty Mouse - Fiddle
The Reverend Tom Toad - Tambourine
Stefan Harris - Vibraphone, Marimba