Track Listing

1. Tamp 'Em up Solid
2. Tattler
3. Married Man's a Fool
4. Jesus on the Mainline
5. It's All Over Now
6. Medley: Fool for a Cigarette/Feelin' Good
7. If Walls Could Talk
8. Mexican Divorce
9. Ditty Wah Ditty

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7657 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007.

Amazon.com essential recording
Think of Ry Cooder as a musicologist who makes learning fun. A particularly nifty collection from 1974, Paradise & Lunch is solo Cooder at his best. The song selection is inspired and unpredictable: numbers by Burt Bacharach, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Bobby Womack commingle with ease. "Tattler" is a rare Ry original that happens to be one of the collection's highlights. Jazz legend Earl Hines guests on the dapper "Ditty Wa Ditty." --Steven Stolder

From Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD
Cooder is a masterful bottleneck guitarist and limited singer with a penchant for revitalizing marvelous old songs, often of the blues variety. Inventive arrangements and excellent ensemble musicianship on Blind Blake's "Diddie Wa Diddie" (that's jazz giant Earl Hines on piano), Willie McTell's "Tattler," and seven more from the American songbook carry the charge through this delightful album from 1974. -- © Frank John Hadley 1993

Customer Reviews

Ry Cooder's Best
All of Ry Cooder's music is exceptional. All of it. So picking his "best" record is a bit like picking Beethoven's best string quartet. Or Bob Dylan's best song. But this album is special. It's the kind of record that you mention to that new friend you discover whose taste is broad, deep and solid, who would recommend a record to you and you would just buy it unquestioningly because of the respect you have for the person's discriminating taste, and that person will look you in the eye with a knowing respect and say, "You know about 'Paradise and Lunch'?" And it will turn out to be on both your top 10 lists. Most people don't know about this record, but every time I meet that rare new person who really knows music but whose taste is not focused on just one area (you know, the guy who has every album Cecil Taylor made, but who has never heard of the Kronos Quartet), this one is on their short list of all-time favorites.

If you are not sure whether you will like it, ask yourself whether you like old country blues, old gospel, calypso, street-corner a capella singing, or any pre-commercial American roots music. No? OK, forget it then. But if you do, all those influences are on this record and more, produced and performed in an original, infectious way that will keep these tunes in your head for decades (they've certainly been in my head that long.) In fact, I probably would not put it on my list of 10 records to take to a desert island, like some other reviewers mentioned. I don't have to, because every song on the album has long been burned into my synapses, and I can recall them all note for note any time I want. You might find the same happens to you. Tamp 'em up solid, so they won't come down.

What an amazing collection of songs from a terrific artist.
I first encountered Ry Cooder in 1979 when I bought the first edition of The Rolling Stone Record Guide and despite my near poverty level pay as a high school teacher, proceeded to buy every 5-star album in the book. When I reached the C's and read about music archivist Ry Cooder and his masterpiece "Paradise and Lunch," I rushed out and bought it. It was everything they said it was. Stylistically, it may be all over the map, but every song is a classic. While I have since purchased all of Cooder's music, "Paradise" was the one that I went out and repurchased on CD. If I could only take ten albums to a desert island, this would definitely be one of them.

a desert island disc
I wore out my original record of this long ago. It's my favorite Ry Cooder album, and I've got most of 'em. Why? Top notch, soulful playing and singing, and quirky songs that'll make you laugh! ("I got thrown out of church, for talkin' 'bout Diddy Wah Diddy too much...")It's not commercial stuff, but in a perfect world it would be. Great slide work and fine gospel backup singing. Guaranteed to make you feel good and put a smile on your face! A musician's choice!