Crazy ’Bout An Automobile

This is for my friend Ian who is a total petrolhead and turns 50 about now. It is Ry Cooder and band – and what a band. 

It’s from the film Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces: Let’s Have A Ball which Les Blank made at a concert in Santa Cruz on 25 March 1987. It was the end of the tour and Cooder had turned 40 a week or so earlier. Many clips from the film (which is not available on DVD, as far as I know) have been posted on YouTube by mbroders: if you like this, just click on all Cooder links from mbroders and you’ll probably get the whole concert.

The band is: Jim Keltner, drums; Van Dyke Parks, keyboards; Jorge Calderon, bass; Flaco Jimenez, accordion; Miguel Cruiz, percussion; Steve Douglas, sax; and George Bohannon, trombone. They are all fantastic, as are the singers: Bobby King, tenor; Terry Evans, baritone; Arnold McCuller, tenor; and Willie Green Jr, bass.

The 1988 album Live and Let Live! by King and Evans was produced by Cooder, who plays on it throughout: there is a great version of “At the Dark End of the Street”. Roots heaven.