With Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks and Cooder all putting out major releases within six weeks of each other, the great American spine of blues, roots ’n’ rock remains as defiant as ever. The Cooder is particularly pertinent as it’s four decades since his last live outing, Show Time. The result is a meditation on how times, values and music change yet remain eerily the same. This is Cooder’s gift, to pass on the great American Tradition to the future. Live In San Francisco is even recorded at the same venue and features Jiménez and Evans as it did in the 1970s. But although there’s material familiar from Cooder’s back catalogue, this is no exercise in nostalgia. The good times may roll with ‘Wooly Bully’, but this is a party for the end of the world. Armed with three chords and the truth, Cooder rages against the injustices that divide his beloved, broken promised land. Like Dylan and vintage Cash, the more cracked his voice, the more the passion and power cut through. On new songs like ‘El Corrido De Jesse James’ Cooder fulminates against bankers, summoning the outlaw spirit with a gallows humour. When the splendid Banda Juvenil kicks in behind Jiménez’s ever-joyous accordion it’s no surprise the crowd whoops deliriously. Then there’s that guitar, gently introducing a cry-your-heart out feature for Commagere or dancing all over ‘Why Don’t You Try Me’. But most spectacular is a yawing ‘Vigilante Man’ that opens the very gates of hell, with Blind Willie Johnson, Woody Guthrie and James Blood Ulmer all steaming aboard. No wonder Cooder’s precious Charlie Christian amp blew up.