Ry Cooder has announced an upcoming album The Prodigal Son and also shares a music video for “The Prodigal Son”.

The album is the first in solo album in six years. The album is a work of blues and R&B. The artist shows elegance and passion through his vocals and guitar. According to the press release, Cooder states in the album’s liner notes “I do connect the political/economic dimensions with the inner life of people, since people are at risk and oppressed on all sides in our world today. There’s some kind of reverence mood that takes hold when you play and sing these songs. ‘Reverence’ is a word I heard my granddaughter’s nursery school teacher use, a Kashmiri woman. She said, ‘We don’t want to teach religion, but instill reverence.’ I thought that was a good word for the feeling of this music.”

When talking  to Billboard, Cooder says “It’s a heavy thing to sing. It’s special. I always loved country gospel from back when I was a teenager in high school and started listening to bluegrass quite a lot. You can play as good as you want, but it’s a whole other thing to actually sing them. It’s daunting. But I got in there and sang the bass parts, and Ricky, being an expert, helped me if I had the wrong notes or something.”

The live studio performance for “The Prodigal Son” can be watched below. The album artwork and tracklist are listed below.

The Prodigal Son 

01) Straight Street
02) Shrinking Man
03) Gentrification
04) Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right
05) The Prodigal Son
06) Nobody’s Fault But Mine
07) You Must Unload
08) I’ll Be Rested When the Roll Is Called
09) Harbor of Love
10) Jesus and Woody
11) In His Care