Ry Cooder "Chicken Skin Music" (1976)

Part of my complaint about the earlier Cooder records was that they were a bit too by the numbers.  Boomer discovers the blues.  Boomer records Robert Johnson covers.  Yawn.  I think I've heard that one before. 

Chicken Skin Music flips the script a bit.  Yeah, it still starts with some blues covers, but the next thing you know Cooder is throwing in Latin and Hawaiian influences and it gets good and weird.