Into The Purple Valley

Two LPs have dominated tonight's listening; 'Into The Purple Valley', by Ry Cooder, and 'Handful Of Earth', by Dick Gaughan.


Ry Cooder seems to me to be an unsung giant of guitar music. I bought this LP when I was 17 or 18, from Way Ahead records on Hurts Yard in Nottingham. Most of the tracks are cover versions of songs by folks like Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, etc. Cooder is maybe more famous these days for being the instigator of the Buena Vista Social Club, as well as his soundtrack for Paris Texas, but he paid his dues playing guitar alongside Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, and in the 'Sticky Fingers' era Rolling Stones. Not to mention one of the great lost Stones singles, 'Memo From Turner' from the soundtrack to Performance.

Cooder has claimed that Keith Richards pinched his signature guitar tuning, and based subsequent Stones albums around his sound, although the Keef countered that Cooder himself learned various tunings and techniques from the likes of Rev Gary Davis and was therefore hardly in a position to claim originality.

Either way, Into The Purple Valley is a terrific LP, some great slide guitar - Vigilante Man being the highlight for me.

Gaughan, on the other hand, is the man who prompted Andy Kershaw to exclaim 'I thought The Redskins were radical until I discovered Dick Gaughan'.

Famously, Handful Of Earth was voted the best folk album of the 1980's by readers of Folk Roots, on the strength of tracks like 'World Turned Upside Down' (covered by Billy Bragg) and 'Worker's Song'.

Jim and I once went to see him at the Old Vic, not a vintage evening, but great to see the man in close quarters. There were two ladies at the bar loudly discussing topics unrelated to socialist folk music. After the next convenient tune, Jim leaned over to them and said 'Could you talk a bit more loudly? I can still hear Dick Gaughan'.

Did the trick...