Ry Cooder

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Ryland "Ry" Peter Cooder (born on March 15, 1947) is a guitarist especially well known for his slide guitar work. He was born in Los Angeles, California.

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Career

Cooder first attracted attention in the 1960s, playing with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, after previously having worked with Taj Mahal in The Rising Sons.

Throughout the 1970s, Cooder released a series of Warner Brothers albums that showcased his guitar work, to some degree. In this respect, Cooder's guitar work on these records is not unlike the guitar playing of Robbie Robertson on the Band's albums: Both virtuosos emphasized song over solo. Cooder's '70's albums spotlight, more than anything, a wide-ranging taste in music. Cooder has been seen as almost a musicologist, excavating obscure genres with personalized and sensitive, updated reworkings that, truth be told, often improve on the revered originals. Cooder's '70s albums (with the conspicuous exception of Jazz) cannot quite be neatly pidgeonholed as each-album-showcases-distinct-genre. But — to generalize broadly — it might be fair to call Cooder's first album blues; Into the Purple Valley, Boomer's Story, and Paradise and Lunch, folk + blues; Chicken Skin Music and Showtime, a unique melange of Tex-Mex and Hawaiian; Jazz, 1920s jazz; Bop Till You Drop '50's R&B; and Borderline and Get Rhythm, eclectic rock-based excursions.

Cooder has worked as a studio musician and has also scored many film soundtracks, of which perhaps the best known is that for the 1984 Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas. Ry Cooder based this soundtrack on Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)," which he described as "The most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music." His other film work includes Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980) and Southern Comfort (1981).

In recent years, Cooder has played a role in the increased appreciation of traditional Cuban music, due to his collaboration as producer in the Buena Vista Social Club (1997) recording, which was a worldwide hit. Wim Wenders directed a documentary film of the musicians involved, Buena Vista Social Club (1999) which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. Cooder worked with Tuvan throat singers for the score to the 1993 film Geronimo: An American Legend.

Cooder's solo work has been an eclectic mix, taking in dust bowl folk, blues, Tex-Mex, soul, gospel, rock, and almost everything else. He has collaborated with many important musicians, including the Rolling Stones, Little Feat, the Chieftains, John Lee Hooker, Gabby Pahinui, and Ali Farka Toure. He formed the Little Village supergroup with Nick Lowe, John Hiatt, and Jim Keltner.

Cooder's 1979 album Bop Till You Drop was the first popular music album to be recorded digitally. It yielded his biggest hit, a Disco/R&B cover of Elvis Presley's 1950s recording Little Sister.

Cooder is mentioned in one of The Tragically Hip's songs entitled "At the 100th Meridian".

Rolling Stone magazine named Ry Cooder the 8th Greatest Guitarist of All Time in their "100 Greatest Guitarists" list. Immediately behind Cooder in the list were Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards. Ry Cooder was a guest session guitarist on several Rolling Stones albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, and (most significantly) contributing the haunting slide guitar solo to "Sister Morphine" on Sticky Fingers. He even turned down an offer to join the Rolling Stones at one point. Cooder notably taught Keith Richards how to play in the "open-G" tuning; Richards has used the tuning ever since, including on many of the Stones' greatest songs.

Cooder also stepped in for the recording of the slide guitar parts in the 1986 film Crossroads, a take on the infamous tale of the blues legend, Robert Johnson.

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