Ry Cooder - Chicken Skin Music (1976) [MFSL 2018] PS3 ISO + DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

The title of Ry Cooder's Chicken Skin Music - Hawaiian slang for goosebumps - serves as a direct, simple description of the album's emotional appeal. But it barely scratches the surface of a 1976 effort that triggered an interest in "world music" a decade before the term became commonplace and a genre into and of itself. Part of a series of inimitable mid-1970s records on which Cooder ignored traditional boundaries and instigated lasting cross-cultural communication, Chicken Skin Music blends gospel, Hawaiian, folk, blues, and Tex-Mex styles into a brilliant roots stew distinguished with virtuosic playing and inspired contextual surprises. Mastered from the original master tapes and strictly limited to 2000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's hybrid SACD of Chicken Skin Music brings the brilliant instrumental textures and lively tonalities to the fore like no prior digital edition.

Ry Cooder has always believed in the "mutuality in music," and this may be no more evident in his career than with his fifth album, Chicken Skin Music (a Hawaiian colloquialism, synonymous with goosebumps). Even more than usual, Cooder refuses to recognize borders – geographical or musical – presenting "Stand By Me" as a gospel song with a norteño arrangement, or giving the Jim Reeves country-pop classic, "He'll Have to Go," a bolero rhythm, featuring the interplay of Flaco Jimenez's accordion and Pat Rizzo's alto sax. Elsewhere, he teams with a pair of Hawaiian greats – steel guitarist and singer Gabby Pahinui and slack key guitar master Atta Isaacs – on the Hank Snow hit "Yellow Roses" and the beautiful instrumental "Chloe." If Cooder's approach to the music is stylistically diverse, his choice of material certainly follows suit. Bookended by a couple of Leadbelly compositions, Chicken Skin Music sports a collection of songs ranging from the aforementioned tracks to the charming old minstrel/medicine show number "I Got Mine" and the syncopated R&B of "Smack Dab in the Middle." Also included is Appalachian songwriter Blind Alfred Reed's "Always Lift Him Up," complete with a Hawaiian gospel tune, "Kanaka Wai Wai," woven into the instrumental section. As he explains in the album's liner notes, Cooder understands the connection between these seemingly disparate styles. This is not merely eclecticism for its own sake. Chicken Skin Music is probably Ry Cooder's most eccentric record since his first, but it's also one of his most entertaining.

Tracklist:

01. The Bourgeois Blues
02. I Got Mine
03. Always Lift Him Up/Kanaka Wai Wai
04. He'll Have To Go
05. Smack Dab In The Middle
06. Stand By Me
07. Yellow Roses
08. Chloe
09. Goodnight Irene

Mastered by Shawn R. Britton at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.


Thanks to PS³SACD!
Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 1,6 GB
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