What is Hip?

Lucky me. I got the nicest Birthday greetings today! Thank you!

I love music. And fortunately, most of my favorite musicians perform regularly, so I get to see them. There is one artist, however, who stands above all the rest - always has and always will be my favorite, and that is Ry Cooder. This sounds dramatic, but I would count some of Ry's concerts as way up there on a list of highlights of my life. Ry doesn't perform anymore - doesn't have to - doesn't want to. I've seen him perform several times years ago, but the last time I saw him was in 1992. He lives in Santa Monica and makes a record every few years. I've been reminiscing about those old concerts a lot lately for some reason, and lamenting about how much I would love to see him again, and that it'll never happen. I even scoped out YouTube a few weeks back and posted a clip from one of those old Ry concerts on this blog. There's nobody I'd rather see, and that'll never change. There's just something about Ry.

Thanks to a heads-up from Michele, I found out that Ry had agreed to play two nights at Great American Music Hall as a benefit, on Oct. 3rd & 4th. We were able to go to last night's show. We traveled with Doug and Barrett Jayne, who made the evening even more fun. Doug's the only person I know who's into Ry as much as I am; to the point of naming his son Ry! To make it even sweeter, the show was called "Guitar-Bass-Drums" and it was with Jim Keltner and Nick Lowe - It was an amazing evening. One that I will probably have to cherish as the last time I'll ever see Ry, and perhaps Nick Lowe too. We've all changed a lot in 16 years, and although Ry looks pretty good, Nick looked really old. But I think if he'd shedded his "Mr. Rogers" sweater, he could have looked 10 years younger! Word has it there were lots of "stars" in the audience, many in town for Hardly Strickly Bluegrass, including Robert Plant and Allison Krause. Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris were there Thursday night. Elvis Costello was there both nights, and perfomed both nights, too. The songs were mostly Nick Lowe songs, which were great songs, but I would have loved to hear more of Ry's pieces. They all sounded great, and needless to say, I was in heaven. Sarah Palin, that thing that seems to be on everybody's mind these days, crept her way into the lyrics of Ry's "How can a Poor Man Stand Such Times as These?
Some of the other pieces they did were: What is Hip, Pretty Baby?, The Beast in Me, Without Love, What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?, The Best that You Can, Take It From a Fool Who Knows, Gai Gin Man, Fool For A Cigarette, One of these Days, Never Bring My Baby Back To Me, Half a Boy and Half a Man.

Joel Selvin of the Chron wrote a full review of Thursday's concert at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/10/04/DDGR13B0SR.DTL
(sorry; can't get this link to work, but you can copy & paste if you want to read it.)






Then today, Dave & I went over to the Sonoma Valley to another benefit concert at BR Cohn winery. An entirely different experience, but very enjoyable. The lineup was The Turtles, Todd Rundgren, Kris Kristopherson and the Doobie Brothers. The Turtles were surprisingly FUN - we loved them, and Todd was fantastic. Kris was a bit boring, and we left shortly after the Doobies started, because we just weren't quite into them. Although we thought Todd rocked, I don't really think he fits in very well with the Doobie crowd. But it was a really fun day of laying around in the hot sun and the warm rain, drinking beer and munching on yummy food and listening to music.