Cartoons Monday, Plus: Ry Cooder Slides Home

Our weekly political potshots plus a tribute to the best of the guitarman/roots master.

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre” which are still up at PBS.org. Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

Before we get to this week’s cartoons: Occasionally in these pages we celebrate a 1970s album, from back in my days at Crawdaddy. But it’s not just a nostalgia act, it stems from my return to vinyl a year or so ago and digging back into (and digging) some of my old albums that have been just sitting on the shelf for many years. Hence, tributes here to Neil Young’s “Zuma” earlier this month, and before that lps by the likes of Gene Clark, Ann Peebles and Little Feat.

Today, let me direct you to the second solo album, “Into the Purple Valley,” by slide guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder in 1972. Besides his own many albums, he is known as a crucial sideman for everyone from Capt. Beefheart to the Stones (late-60s to early ‘70s) and Linda Ronstadt, key figure in the “Buena Vista Social Club” record and Oscar-nominated film, and much more. Once named 8th greatest ever by Rolling Stone. Myself, I’ve always loved his roots focus, consistent left politics, and obsession with Depression-era themes and music. Also, he wrote a couple of pieces for Crawdaddy back in the day.

His ‘72 album was a mad mix of old folk and blues stylings, odes to FDR and Billy the Kid, a song by Bahama legend Joseph Spence, and old rock ‘n roll (Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter,” “Money Honey” and “Teardrops Will Fall”). Also loved the album cover, see below. Here are just three cuts:

Woody Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man,” here live.

“Teardrops Will Fall”

“Taxes on the Farmer Feed Us All”

Bonus: Ry played lead guitar on Stones’ “Sister Morphine.”

Keeping in ‘Toon