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The upside of indulging in nostalgic reminiscences about places you’ve never been is that your false memories tend to be happy ones. Now that Ry Cooder is done trying to relive the glory years of pre-Castro Havana with Buena Vista Social Club, he’s turned his focus closer to home, revisiting the good old days in the Latino enclave of Chávez Ravine before it was bulldozed to make room for Dodgers Stadium. As usual, Cooder assembles a cast of ringers – here it’s Lalo Guerrero, Little Willie G and Don Tosti – to help muster the impression of authenticity, and they do a decent job of recreating Pachuco boogie for a pleasant bit of folkloric exotica. But if you’re interested in a more realistic account, check out Don Normark’s great photo journal, Chávez Ravine 1949: A Los Angeles Story (Chronicle Books).
