ans of roots music around the world owe 73-year-old guitarist Ry Cooder a debt of gratitude. The sheer evangelical fervor of his blues proselytizing, his insistence on giving full credit to the music’s original creators, and his legendary slide-guitar session work over the years have influenced an array of artists ranging from Captain Beefheart (Safe As Milk), to The Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers), to German film director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Buena Vista Social Club). While Cooder is routinely positioned in the upper tier of "Top 100 Guitarists" tallies, it’s the man’s ability to transport listeners to another musical time and place that makes his artistic contributions worth special celebration. So it’s only fitting that the folks at Germany’s Speakers Corner have chosen to reissue two of Cooder’s 1970s solo recordings.

Belying the intentionally goofy DYI style of the album’s cover, 1974’s Paradise and Lunch is widely considered Cooder’s most artistically successful album. From his inventive arrangements of classics like Blind Blake’s "Ditty Wa Ditty" and the traditional "Tamp 'Em Up Solid" to recording engineer Lee Herschberg’s warm and richly textured capture of the session’s acoustic instruments and the funky propulsion of its crack rhythm section, Paradise and Lunch is the culmination of an Americana stew Cooder has been brewing ever since his self-titled 1970 solo debut. More than a mere revival of traditional forms, Paradise and Lunch showcases what a brilliant interpreter Cooder is. A case in point is his rendition of Bobby and Shirley Womack’s "It’s All Over Now." Cooder’s amalgamation of Jamaican/calypso rhythms and barrio-flavored harmonies reveals a trove of undiscovered treasures in this soul standard and bests the Rolling Stones’ more pedestrian version of the song by a wide margin.

The Speakers Corner reissue of Paradise and Lunch unearths more weight and heft on the traditional "Tamp 'Em up Solid" than I hear on the well-worn 1976 reissue [Reprise MS 2179] in my collection. Kevin Gray’s remastering imbues Cooder’s back-of-the-throat singing style with some throat and chest resonance that’s lost on the version I own. Cooder’s various steel-string guitars and mandolins now resonate more like the wooden acoustic instruments they are. Additionally, the bass lines on "I’m a Fool for a Cigarette/Feeling Good" are richer, and the background strings are silkier and smoother than what I hear on the ‘76 pressing. Because the background vocals and string accompaniment are fully fleshed out, the result is a more musically satisfying rendition of this addictive song. On the New Orleans-flavored "Jesus Is On the Mainline," the harmonizing horns have a pleasingly burnished quality, and I hear a silvery sparkle as Cooder’s glass bottleneck slides across his instrument’s strings that makes my reissue sound a tad muddy by comparison. As with every Speakers Corner reissue I’ve heard, this flat Pallas pressing provides velvety-black, ultra-quiet backgrounds that are, sadly, not typical of many new vinyl releases.

Four years after the critically successful Paradise and Lunch, Cooder decided to test the patience of Warner Brothers with the release of Jazz, an album destined to wind up in the cut out bin. Given this set’s unapologetic celebration of music that only musicologists and a few avid record collectors have probably ever heard of, it’s not surprising that Jazz got lost in the post-punk/New Wave explosion of 1978. Even today, my friends’ reactions to Jazz have ranged from "This must’ve been your Grandpa’s favorite record" to "Why’d you buy the soundtrack to The Sting?" What can I say? Some people just don’t have the patience for authentic roots music.