Election Special

Cooder has mined a rich vein of vernacular Americana in recent years, culminating with last year’s wonderful Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (reviewed in #80), which revived the political protest music once embodied by Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. A year later he’s back again with a set of songs in a similar style that constitute a radical manifesto for the forthcoming US presidential election. Songs such as ‘Cold Cold Feeling’ (which envisages a Republican-run White House reintroducing segregation and making Obama use the kitchen door) and the jug-band stomp ‘Mutt Romney Blues’ make it clear that Cooder will be praying and campaigning for a Democratic victory. But the anger of songs such as ‘The Wall Street Part of Town’ and the heartfelt passion of the lovely ‘Brother is Gone’ suggest that his personal philosophy is in reality closer to the militant anti-capitalist stance of the Wobblies – the anarchist-inspired International Workers of the World party, whose adherents once included Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

Musically the nine songs here draw on the acoustic blues and folk roots that inspired Cooder’s classic early 1970s albums, such as Boomer’s Story and Into The Purple Valley. His slide guitar playing sounding more confident than ever and his son Joachim proves to be an outstanding percussionist. ‘Take Your Hands Off It’ is Cooder’s 2012 update on Woody’s ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ while ‘Guantanamo’ echoes the old Cuban tune ‘Guantanamera,’ its lovely folk lilt being updated into a dirty urban blues, while its tale of an innocent country girl is replaced with scary images of the place’s current infamous prison. Cooder’s Election Special contains not only some stirring roots music but a vital message: vote for peace, freedom and music. This is a special record.