A Meeting by the River
Studio album by
Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
ReleasedApril 1993[1]
RecordedSeptember 1992
GenreBlues, international, new-age, pop rock[2]
Length39:35
LabelWater Lily Acoustics
ProducerKavichandran Alexander, Jayant Shah
Ry Cooder chronology
Little Village
(1992)		 A Meeting by the River
(1993)		 Talking Timbuktu
(1994)
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt chronology
Gathering Rain Clouds
(1993)		 A Meeting by the River
(1993)		 Mumtaz Mahal
(1995)

A Meeting by the River is an album recorded by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt; it was recorded in September 1992 and released in April 1993 through the record label Water Lily Acoustics.[2] This improvised, collaborative album features Cooder on slide guitar and Bhatt on the Mohan veena, a stringed instrument created by Bhatt. A Meeting by the River was produced by Kavichandran Alexander and Jayant Shah, engineered by Alexander, and mastered by Kevin Michael Gray and Paul Stubblebine. It peaked at number four on Billboard's Top World Music Albums chart, and earned Cooder and Bhatt Grammy Awards for Best World Music Album at the 36th Grammy Awards in 1994. The album is included in Tom Moon's 2008 book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.

Composition

Mohan veena performer Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in 2006

A Meeting by the River was recorded in September 1992; it features Cooder solely on slide guitar and Bhatt on the Mohan veena, a stringed instrument he created.[2][3] Allmusic's Daniel Gioffre described the instrument as a hybrid between a guitar and a vichitra veena;[2] it is played with a metal slide moving across steel rods along the neck.[4] Cooder had heard a recording of Hindustani classical music performed by Bhatt and was impressed by his playing and the "haunting clarity" of the Mohan veena.[5] Cooder and Bhatt met for the first time less than one hour before recording began; they improvised much of the set; the album's liner notes state, "this recording was unplanned and unrehearsed".[2][4][6] The album was produced by Kavichandran Alexander, founder of Water Lily Acoustics,[7] and Jayant Shah. It was engineered by Alexander, and was mastered by Kevin Michael Gray and Paul Stubblebine. Cooder and Bhatt are accompanied by Cooder's then fourteen-year-old son Joachim on dumbek, a Middle Eastern drum, and by Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari on tabla.[5][8]

The collaboration between Cooder and Bhatt is Alexander's first attempt to record musicians of different cultures together, one of his goals when he founded the record label.[7] Author George Plasketes described Bhatt's playing as "highly nuanced" and said, Cooder performs in a more "loose-jointed, slip 'n' slide style".[5] According to Gioffre, Cooder and Bhatt use improvisation and "voice-like" phrasing, showing melodic performances in an alternating fashion and in unison.[2] The album contains four tracks, three of which are credited to Cooder and Bhatt; tracks range in duration from approximately seven-and-a-half minutes to twelve minutes.[2] "Longing" has a structure similar to a raga. Author Tom Moon said Cooder takes the lead on the hymn "Isa Lei" as Bhatt contributes "elaborate squiggling asides" and "swooping nosedives".[9] In 2011, Bhatt performed "A Meeting by the River" at a music festival in honor of guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Bhatt said of the song, "Music has no religion and no geographical or linguistic barrier. It speaks a universal language. My composition – 'A Meeting by the River' – aims at explaining this."[10] Bhatt has said he considers working with Cooder his "most special" collaboration.[11]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]
Chicago Tribune[4]
Rolling Stone[12]

Gioffre wrote a positive review of the album and called Cooder and Bhatt "genuine masters" of their respective instruments.[2] He described the musical interplay between the musicians as "nothing short of astounding" and the album as a rare instance in which a combination of genres works. Gioffre also wrote, "this album is masterfully recorded; each instrument is clear, distinct, and three-dimensional sounding. A Meeting by the River is a must-own, a thing of pure, unadulterated beauty, and the strongest record in Cooder's extensive catalog."[2] Peter Margasak of the Chicago Tribune awarded the album four stars out of four, describing Cooder's performance as "arresting" and Bhatt's as "haunting". Margasak wrote that the fusion revealed a "rare, often transcendental beauty" as the two artists "gently and intuitively" found common ground.[4] Rolling Stone called the album "fruitful" and awarded it three stars out of five.[12]

Chart performance and recognition

Ry Cooder in 2009

A Meeting by the River reached a peak position of number four on Billboard's Top World Music Albums chart.[13] In 1994, the album earned Cooder and Bhatt Grammy Awards for Best World Music Album.[14] Bhatt became one of a few Indian musicians to have received a Grammy Award until A. R. Rahman won at the 52nd Grammy Awards in 2010. Previous Indian award winners had been recognized jointly with Western artists.[15] The February 25, 1995, issue of Billboard, which featured the annual "Indies Spotlight" and covered independent music between the January 29, 1994, and January 21, 1995, issues of the magazine included A Meeting by the River at number ten on its list of the "Top Indie World Music Albums".[16] The album is included in Tom Moon's 2008 book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener's Life List.[9]

Chart (1993) Peak
position
Billboard's Top World Music Albums 4

Track listing

All tracks by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt unless noted otherwise.

  1. "A Meeting by the River" – 10:03
  2. "Longing" – 11:56
  3. "Ganges Delta Blues" – 9:57
  4. "Isa Lei" (Caten) – 7:39

Track listing adapted from Allmusic.[2]

Personnel

Credits adapted from Allmusic.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Strong, Martin Charles (2006). The Essential Rock Discography. Canongate U.S. p. 223. ISBN 9781841958606. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Gioffre, Daniel. "A Meeting by the River". Allmusic. Archived from the original on December 19, 2010. Retrieved February 18, 2011.
  3. ↑ Kumar, Sanjay (February 4, 2005). "Meeting by the backwaters". The Hindu. Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India: The Hindu Group. ISSN 0971-751X. OCLC 13119119. Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Margasak, Peter (July 22, 1993). "Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt A Meeting by the River..." Chicago Tribune. Tribune Company. ISSN 1085-6706. Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 Plasketes, George (2009). B-sides, Undercurrents and Overtones: Peripheries to Popular in Music, 1960 to the Present. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 92–93. ISBN 9780754665618. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  6. ↑ Frith, Simon; Straw, Will; Street, John (2001). The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. p. 284. ISBN 9780521556606. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  7. 1 2 Morris, Chris (May 4, 1996). "Musical Hybrids Thrive at Water Lily". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 108 (18): 55–56. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  8. 1 2 "A Meeting by the River: Credits". Allmusic. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  9. 1 2 Moon, Tom (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener's Life List. Workman Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-7611-3963-8. OCLC 179803341. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Grammy award winner pays tributes to Guru Kelucharan". The Hindu. Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India: The Hindu Group. September 11, 2011. ISSN 0971-751X. OCLC 13119119. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  11. ↑ Sheikh, Shahzeb (December 12, 2010). "Spotlight: Soulful stirrings". Dawn. Saddar, Karachi, Pakistan: Dawn Group of Newspapers. Archived from the original on January 19, 2011. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  12. 1 2 Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian David (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 188–189. ISBN 9780743201698. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  13. ↑ "A Meeting by the River: Charts & Awards". Allmusic. Archived from the original on March 18, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  14. ↑ "The Grammy Winners". The New York Times. March 3, 1994. p. 2. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  15. ↑ Ravi, Bhama Devi (February 2, 2010). "Rahman's individual Grammy a first for India". The Times of India. New Delhi, Delhi, India: The Times Group. OCLC 23379369. Archived from the original on September 26, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
  16. ↑ Mayfield, Geoff (25 February 1995). "Charting the Best Indies: Top Indie World Music Albums". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 107 (8): 126. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved September 16, 2011.

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