Chavez Ravine

Ry Cooder's 'Chavez Ravine' is a post-World War II-era American narrative of "cool cats", radios, U.F.O. sightings, J. Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball. The record is a tribute to the long-gone Los Angeles Latino enclave known as Chavez Ravine. Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends created an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano community, which was bulldozed by developers in the 1950s in the interest of "progress". Dodgers Stadium ultimately was built on the site.

The musical strains of Los Angeles, including conjunto, corrido, R&B, Latin pop, and jazz, conjure the ghosts of Chavez Ravine and Los Angeles at mid-century. On this fifteen-track album, sung in Spanish and English, Cooder is joined by East L.A. legends like Chicano music patriarch Lalo Guerrero, Pachuco boogie king Don Tosti, Thee Midniters front man Little Willie G., and Ersi Arvizu, of The Sisters and El Chicano.

A Los Angeles native, Cooder has been working in Cuba since 1998, producing 'The Buena Vista Social Club', 'Ibrahim Ferrer', Ferrer's 'Buenos Hermanos', and 'Mambo Sinuendo' - all Grammy winners. Three years in the making, 'Chavez Ravine' marks his musical homecoming.