and who needed to know what they know? It just didn't mean a damn thing."

From the beginning, versatility to the point of invisibility has had no allure for Ry. His limited, intentionally primitive musical approach has been part of an overall stance, and it is this stance which gives Ry, although he writes almost none of his own material, as tangible a personality and outlook as our finest singer-song-writers.

To be precise, Ry's personality is a persona. Having lived for so long in the world of old scratchy records, Ry offers himself as one of its downtrodden, Depression everymen. Ry Cooder and Into the Purple Valley introduced us to this affable, bedraggled anti-hero; Boomer's Story assures us that within those marvelous limitations Ry sets for himself there is still "available space."

Boomer's Story hasn't the diversity or activity of the first album, but it has the authority of the second and a bit more adventure. Ry's cracked voice is more studied than before; he's turned his liabilities into assets. But the overall tone is casual, homemade, right down to the stark, monochromatic cover. Plainly laid out are the rewards of Ry's siftings through the archives of American folk music.

"Come and gather all around me/and listen to my tale of woe," the first in Ry's gallery of life's losers implores. Boomer, like the character in "Good Morning, Mr. Railroad Man," is a hobo. "Boomer's Story" is very Band-like, especially when the vocal harmony enters. It contains Cooder's typically pungent, syncopated interplay of mandolin and electric slide guitar, as well as the bass and piano of Jim Dickinson and the drums of Jim Keltner. "Cherry Ball Blues" is one of the album's three instrumentals; the beautifully blended acoustic and electric slide guitar are wittily repetitious. "Crow Black Chicken" and Sleepy John Estes' "A Sweet Mama" include muted trombone. On "Maria Elena" Ry casts his gaze southward. But "Maria Elena" is other than a bit of Hispanic scholarship—for one thing, Ry plays a metal-string guitar—but, with its dulcet violins, it continues the Hollywood motif of Into the Purple Valley: You can almost see Rita Hayworth sipping sombreros amid the potted palms.

Ry wisely allows only his guitar to tell the tale of clandestine romance in "Dark End of the Street." The statement here is too full-blown for Ry's croakings, but his gu