Vancouver Folk Music Festival presents performances by Joachim Cooder and Ry Cooder, featuring the HamilTones, on Sunday, July 15. For a full schedule visit thefestival.bc.ca/2018-weekend-schedule.
Americana roots legend Ry Cooder makes a rare trip to Vancouver this weekend for a performance at the folk festival.
His son, Joachim Cooder, who has played in his father’s band since he was 16 years old, is joining him on tour and will also play a set of his own music.
Joachim has been part of his father’s musical projects for several decades, including the Grammy winning Cuban music project, Buena Vista Social Club. He spoke to the North Shore News about working on both his and his father’s new albums and their upcoming live shows.
NSN: A lot of people say they grew up immersed in music but your childhood probably tops theirs. What was it like growing up with Ry Cooder as your father?
Joachim Cooder: It was definitely a musically exciting childhood. There was a lot of people coming over to the house. I was an only child so my mom and I went with him everywhere which I think was a really lucky thing, whether it was the Atlanta Blues Festival or Cuba for Buena Vista, we were able to go with him and that’s how I got started myself.
NSN: You chose percussion over a string instrument.
Joachim Cooder: Jim Keltner left his drum set at our house while they were practising for a record and that’s when I started playing it. I would go down there and play his drum set. I was always fascinated by Keltner. He had this big kit and all the drums were different colours. He built all this hardware and he had electronic stuff going all the time and I guess I was just drawn to it. He was also such a cool guy. I was never drawn to any string instruments which I think is a good thing because it would be pretty depressing to be (Ry Cooder’s) guitar-playing son.
NSN: When did you start playing in your dad’s band?
Joachim Cooder: I think in the early ’90s. He was touring with David Lindley, just the two of them. Lindley was touring with a percussionist in his solo show who had a dumbek, the Turkish hand drum. He gave it to me and that was a way to jump up on stage as you didn’t have to be carting around a full set. You could get all these really good sounds with just one drum and a microphone or two. I would get up for the encore and play three songs with them and the next tour I played the whole set.
NSN: On Meeting By the River, your first recording, you are playing the dumbek on there.
Joachim Cooder: That’s the drum.
NSN: What was the Buena Vista Social Club like? It’s almost taken on a mythological life of its own.
Joachim Cooder: I didn’t know what was going to happen. Nick Gold, of World Circuit Records, was going to fly West African musicians to Cuba and then there was going to be a Cuban/West African crossroads record but they didn’t get their visas. We got there and the whole idea went out the window and they started bringing in these (other) guys. Nobody could have ever known it was going to be this huge deal. Being around them was what was so incredible. They were just the warmest, most interesting people. They didn’t know who we were, especially me. I had all my funny drums I brought that they had never seen before but they were really welcoming. It was all over in two weeks. It was really just a small little trip. (In retrospect it became) so grand but it was quite a small thing at the time.
NSN: You’ve branched out on your own but you’ve also kept working with your dad. He credits you with coming up with the gospel concept on his new album, The Prodigal Son.
Joachim Cooder: I make a lot of instrumental soundscapes with my instruments and I just loop them. I had them going in the studio and he walked in and went into a little corner in the studio and started singing along. And then he said, ‘Hey, can I have that one?’ And I said, ‘Oh yea, sure.’ That’s how a few of these songs came about. That’s why they have these interesting textures. I guess he got inspired by what I was doing and maybe he credited me with the concept because I was telling him not to do a heavily political record like the last few records he’s been making. I just said, ‘Do something like the old stuff you used to do – very guitar-oriented with old songs.’ I just thought people would be really happy to hear that right now in our time.
NSN: How did you match up the soundscapes with some of the other material on the record?
Joachim Cooder: That was his doing. Once we had those going and it was going in more of a gospel way we just started doing a bunch of those songs.
NSN: At almost the same time you were working on your own project Fuchsia Machu Picchu.
Joachim Cooder: My wife and I bought a house in Mount Washington which is in northeast L.A. It’s a pretty old cool dirt road enclave where artists have always lived. We kept coming back to this one house because we were looking for a house for a long time. It turns out it was hand-built by Klaus Voormann, the German bass player and artist who did the The Beatles’ Revolver album cover. We didn’t know that at the time, it was just this interesting house. It felt like we were in Topanga. There was this big two-lot space that was just dirt and neglected and needed landscaping. We went down to the Home Depot in our area and started looking for plants and found a plant called Fuchsia Machu Picchu. That was the first plant we bought because we liked the sound of the name. After we planted it I just started singing to it every day and it became this chant thing. I’d never written any songs before, I’d never sang, never thought of my voice as a real singing voice. After doing it long enough I thought maybe I should actually do this and not just sing to our plants.
NSN: The track’s vibe has world music connotations.
Joachim Cooder: All that music is the kind of stuff I grew up listening to and loving, like Ali Farka Touré, Tuareg desert music. I play this electric mbira and it naturally has a very world music feel.
NSN: In new videos, that came out of the Fuchsia Machu Picchu sessions, you’re playing that instrument. (It looks like a Harry Partch construction).
Joachim Cooder: It’s called an Array Mbira. It’s just this big electric solid-body mbira. I’ve been playing these instruments for over 20 years but it’s only recently that Bill Wesley, the guy who makes them, made an electric version. It’s what’s allowed me to get up onstage and play and sing these songs live.
NSN: Do you compose on the instrument?
Joachim Cooder: On Fuchsia Machu Picchu it all starts with just me and the instrument and singing over it. For the record I built it out. For the live show and the one I will be doing in Vancouver it will be me and a saxophone player. We do the whole thing just the two of us. Sam Gendel is the most incredible musician I think I’ve ever played with. Each night we do this I’m very transported.
NSN: When you worked on your own album did you focus on it entirely or go back and forth between projects?
Joachim Cooder: I worked on this one for a very long time because we just had our daughter. It wasn’t easy to go into a studio and block out time so it was little bits at a time. I would work with my engineer and get a couple of songs done and sit with that for a while and maybe a month later block out some more time. It was a very slow process but there was no real hurry because it was all very organic.
NSN: I read an account of a live show you did in L.A. earlier this year and it was a real family affair. Your dad brought you on tour at an early age - are you going to do the same with your kids?
Joachim Cooder: I’d love to. That would be great. I have a daughter and a son. If they want to do it, I have a job for them. My daughter’s actually a very good harmonic player so that could be one of her instruments.
