The Ry Cooder Anthology: The UFO Has Landed

Distilling a more than four decade career down to 34 tracks would be difficult under any circumstance. When it’s someone as creatively diverse as Ry Cooder, who has served as a key sessionman, a songwriter, and a movie soundtrack artist, it’s all but impossible to completely capture every worthy piece; however, this collection assembled by Cooder’s musical foil and son, Joachim Cooder, does an admirable job at bringing the many disparate ends into rhyme and rhythm. Joachim discards the notion of chronology and assembles the pieces like a newly constructed puzzle, telling the Ry Cooder story as a balance between his better-known pieces and the quizzical obscurities that collectors will enjoy, all flowing together as if this were a brand new album from an accomplished artist. From Cooder’s self-titled 1970 debut through 2008’s I, Flathead, with plenty of stop-offs in between to pick up tracks from the soundtracks to Paris, Texas, Southern Comfort, Alamo Bay, Crossroads and Johnny Handsome, The UFO Has Landed captures this stellar slide guitarist and his likable if limited vocal skills (he’s a rural bluesman at heart) in a prime setting.