I, Flathead Limited Deluxe Edition

It takes courage to release a concept album, and something close to mad faith in one's art to release three in succession, as Ry Cooder has.
The concept album is usually an accident waiting to happen, so Ry Cooder is pushing his luck making three in a row.
"I, Flathead" is the concluding part of his 'California Trilogy', following 2005's "Chavez Ravine" and last year's "My Name Is Buddy", and it's a tribute to Cooder's talents that it's a match for either.
More than four decades since he emerged as an electric blues guitarist so highly rated that he turned down an offer to join the Rolling Stones when they looked for a replacement for Brian Jones in the Sixties, Cooder has ploughed a less commercial but hugely rewarding furrow as possibly America's most important rock musician.
A set of linked songs supposedly performed by one Kash Buk and his 'Klowns', a circle of 'petrolheads': drag racers and automotive junkies who wander the salt flats of California in...Read more

OK, you don't need a whole history.
Most people don't end up here cold.
Read the other reviews or the label PR to give you the basics about this trilogy.
This record continues the eclectic journey that is the essence of Ry's music. He really goes back to the music he would have heard on the radio and in the streets of LA as a kid. Amalgam of 50's Mex-pop, big-band, jazz, blues, rock and all that. Like his recent series, he is very reserved with the guitar solos that so defined his early work. With age he's become even more subtle, as if that was possible. But, when he puts it out it is as sweet as it gets. The best way to define this is adventurous (as always), fun, retro and still progressive.
Personally, my own view,I am a major Ry fan, and have been since the 70s. Of the recent works, Mambo Sinuendo was one of my favorites, but I found Chavez Ravine a bit of a push. The heavy Mexican pop undercurrent was not up my alley, although it had its moments. My name...Read more

if you don't know california in the '50's and '60's, don't read this book.. the music will be enough.. then read the book. through sheer persistence and love, cooder has become the grand historian for cali in the day.. every referrence rings true and resonates through the reality of the ground level history of so cal.. he nails it.. every time.. and the music ain't too shabby neither.. except for the guitar.. kidding