Ryland Peter Cooder (born March 15, 1947) is an American musician,

songwriter, film score composer and record producer.

He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work,

his interest in roots music from the United States, and his collaborations

with traditional musicians from many countries.
 

Cooder's solo work draws upon many genres. He has played with 

John Lee Hooker, Captain Beefheart, Gordon Lightfoot, Ali Farka Touré,

 Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, 

Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt. David Lindley, The Chieftains, 

The Doobie Brothers, and Carla Olson & the Textones (on record and film).

He formed the band Little Village. He also produced the 

Buena Vista Social Club album (1997), which became a worldwide hit. 

Wim Wenders directed the documentary film of the same name (1999),

which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000.
 

Cooder was ranked eighth on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of

"The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"(David Fricke's Picks). 

Cooder was born in Los Angeles, California, to father Bill Cooder

and Italian-American mother Emma Casaroli.

He grew up in Santa Monica, California, and graduated from Santa

Monica High School in 1964. During the 1960s, he briefly attended 

Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He began playing the guitar when

he was three years old.He has had a glass eye since he was four,

when he accidentally stuck a knife in his left eye.

As a young man Cooder performed as part of a pickup trio with 

Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, in which he played banjo. The trio

was not a success, (“Well, son, you’re just not ready”, he remembered

Monroe telling him after the first and only set he played with them),

but Cooder applied banjo tunings and the three-finger roll to guitar

instead.

Cooder first attracted attention playing with Captain Beefheart and

his Magic Band, notably on the 1967 album Safe As Milk, after

previously having worked with Taj Mahal and Ed Cassidy in the 

Rising Sons. At a vital "warm-up" performance at the Mt. Tamalpais

Festival (1967-06-10/11) shortly before the scheduled Monterey

Pop Festival (1967-06-16/18), the band began to play "Electricity"

and Don Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked off the

10 ft (3.0 m) stage and landed on manager Bob Krasnow. He later

claimed he had seen a girl in the audience turn into a fish, with bubbles

coming from her mouth. This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough

success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no

longer work with Van Vliet,[10] effectively quitting both the event

and the band on the spot. Cooder also played with Randy Newman,

including on 12 Songs.Van Dyke Parks worked with Newman and

Cooder during the 1960s. Parks arranged Cooder's "One Meatball"

according to Parks' 1984 interview by Bob Claster.
 

Cooder was a session musician on various recording sessions with 

The Rolling Stones in 1968 and 1969, and his contributions appear

on the albums Let It Bleed (Yank Rachell-style mandolin on

"Love in Vain"), and Sticky Fingers, on which he contributed the

slide guitar on "Sister Morphine". During this period, Cooder joined

with Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and longtime

Rolling Stones sideman Nicky Hopkins to record Jamming with Edward!.

Cooder also played slide guitar for the 1970 film soundtrack Performance,

which contained Jagger's first solo single, "Memo from Turner".

The 1975 compilation album Metamorphosis features an uncredited

Cooder contribution on Bill Wyman's "Downtown Suzie".

Cooder also collaborated with Lowell George of Little Feat, playing 

pedal steel guitar on the original version of "Willin'".
 

Throughout the 1970s, Cooder released a series of Warner Bros.

Records albums that showcased his guitar work, initially on the 

Reprise Records label, before being reassigned to the main

Warners label along with many of Reprise's artists when the

company retired the imprint. Cooder explored bygone musical 

genres and found old-time recordings which he then personalized

and updated. Thus, on his breakthrough album, Into the Purple Valley,

he chose unusual instrumentations and arrangements of blues, gospel, 

calypso, and country songs (giving a tempo change to the cowboy ballad

"Billy the Kid"). The album opened with the song "How Can You Keep

on Moving (Unless You Migrate Too)" by Agnes "Sis" Cunningham about

the Okies who were not welcomed when they migrated west to escape the

 Dust Bowl in the 1930s – to which Cooder gave a rousing-yet-satirical

march accompaniment. In 1970 he collaborated with Ron Nagle and

performed on his Bad Rice album released on Warner Brothers.

His later 1970s albums (with the exception of Jazz, which explored

ragtime/vaudeville) do not fall under a single genre description, but

his self-titled first album could be described as blues; Into the Purple

Valley, Boomer's Story, and Paradise and Lunch as folk and blues; 

Chicken Skin Music and Showtime as a mix of Tex-Mex and Hawaiian; 

Bop Till You Drop as 1950s' R&B; and Borderline and Get Rhythm as

rock-based. His 1979 album Bop Till You Drop was the first popular

music album released that was recorded digitally, using the early 3M

digital mastering recorder.[citation needed] It yielded his biggest hit,

an R&B cover version of Elvis Presley's 1960s recording "Little Sister".

Cooder is credited on Van Morrison's 1979 album, Into the Music, for

slide guitar on the song "Full Force Gale". He also played guitar on 

Judy Collins' 1970 concert tour, and is featured on Living, the 1971

live album recorded during that tour. He also learned from and performed

with Gabby Pahinui and "Atta" Isaacs in Hawaii during the Hawaiian

Renaissance of the early 1970s. He is also credited for guitars on several

1971 recordings by Nancy Sinatra that were produced by Andy Wickman

and Lenny Waronker – "Is Anybody Goin' To San Antone,"

"Hook & Ladder," and "Glory Road." Cooder is credited as a mandolin

player on Gordon Lightfoot's Don Quixote album in 1972.

Cooder has worked as a studio musician and has also scored many film
soundtracks including the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas (1984).

Cooder based this soundtrack and title song "Paris, Texas" 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. Musician Dave Grohl has declared Cooder's score

for Paris, Texas one of his favorite albums. In 2018 Cooder told BBC

Radio 4 listeners: “[Wenders] did a very good job at capturing the

ambience out there in the desert, just letting the microphones and the 

nagra machine roll and get tones and sound from the desert itself, which

I discovered was E♭, was in the key of E♭ – that’s the wind, you know,

was nice. So we tuned everything to E♭."

"Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)" was also the basis for

Cooder's song "Powis Square" for the movie Performance. His other

film work includes Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980), 

Southern Comfort (1981), Streets of Fire (1984), Brewster's Millions

 (1985), Johnny Handsome, Last Man Standing (1996), Hill's Trespass 

(1992) and Mike Nichols' Primary Colors (1998). Cooder along with 

Arlen Roth dubbed all slide and regular Blues guitar parts in the 1986

film Crossroads, a take on blues legend Robert Johnson. In 1988,

Cooder produced the album by his longtime backing vocalists Bobby

King and Terry Evans on Rounder Records titled Live and Let Live.

He contributed his slide guitar work to every track. He also plays

extensively on their 1990 self-produced Rounder release Rhythm,

Blues, Soul & Grooves. Cooder's music also appeared on two episodes

of the television program "Tales From the Crypt" –

"The Man Who Was Death" and "The Thing From the Grave."

In 1984, Cooder played on two songs on the debut album by

Carla Olson & the Textones Midnight Mission – "Carla's Number

One is to Survive" and the previously unreleased Bob Dylan song

"Clean Cut Kid". Shortly thereafter he was writing and recording

the music for the film Blue City and asked the band to appear in the

film performing. (He took them in the studio and produced

"You Can Run" which he also played on.)

In 1985, Cooder was a guest artist on the song "Rough Edges"

from Kim Carnes' album Barking at Airplanes. Kim named her son

Ry as a tribute to Ry Cooder. He played electric slide guitar on 

The Beach Boys' 1988 hit Kokomo.

Also in 1988, Cooder produced and featured in the Les Blank 

directed concert documentary film Ry Cooder & The Moula

Banda Rhythm Aces: Let's Have a Ball where he plays in collaboration

with a selection of musicians famous in their various musical fields. 

The following year, he played a janitor in the Jim Henson series 

The Ghost of Faffner Hall, in the episode "Music Is More

Than Technique".

In the early 1990s Cooder collaborated on two world music "crossover"

albums, which blended the traditional American musical genres that

Cooder has championed throughout his career with the contemporary

improvised music of India and Africa. For A Meeting by the River 

(1993), which also featured his son Joachim Cooder on percussion,

he teamed with Hindustani classical musician V.M. Bhatt, a virtuoso

of the Mohan Veena (a modified 20-string archtop guitar of Bhatt's

own invention) and Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari also known as Pinky

Tabla Player. In 1995 he teamed with African multi-instrumentalist 

Ali Farka Toure on the album Talking Timbuktu, which he also produced;

the album also featured longtime Cooder collaborator Jim Keltner on drums,

veteran blues guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, jazz bassist 

John Patitucci and African percussionists and musicians including 

Hamma Sankare and Oumar Toure. Both albums won the Grammy

Award for 'Best World Music Album' in 1994 and 1995 respectively.

Cooder also worked with Tuvan throat singers for the score to the

1993 film Geronimo: An American Legend.

In 1995 he performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come

True, a musical performance of the popular story at the Lincoln Center

 in New York to benefit the Children's Defense Fund.

The performance was originally broadcast on both TBS and TNT.

It was issued on CD and video in 1996.

In the late 1990s Cooder played a significant role in the increased

appreciation of traditional Cuban music, due to his collaboration as

producer of the Buena Vista Social Club (1997) recording, which

became a worldwide hit and revived the careers of some of the

greatest surviving exponents of 20th century Cuban music. 

Wim Wenders, who had previously directed 1984's Paris, Texas,

directed a documentary film of the musicians involved, 

Buena Vista Social Club (1999), which was nominated for an 

Academy Award in 2000.The enterprise cost him a $25,000 fine for

violating the United States embargo against Cuba.

Cooder's 2005 album Chávez Ravine was touted by his record label 

as being "a post-World War II-era American narrative of 'cool cats',

radios, UFO sightings, J. Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball".

The record is a tribute to the long-gone Los Angeles Latino enclave known

as Chávez Ravine. Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and

friends created an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant

hillside Chicano community which no longer exists. Cooder says,

"Here is some music for a place you don’t know, up a road you don’t go.

Chávez Ravine, where the sidewalk ends." Drawing from the various musical

strains of Los Angeles, including conjunto, R&B, Latin pop, and jazz, Cooder

and friends conjure the ghosts of Chávez Ravine and Los Angeles at

mid-century. On this fifteen-track album, sung in Spanish and English, Cooder

is joined by East L.A. legends like Chicano music patriarch Lalo Guerrero, 

Pachuco boogie king Don Tosti, Thee Midniters front man Little Willie G,

and Ersi Arvizu, of The Sisters and El Chicano.

Cooder's next record was released in 2007. Entitled My Name Is Buddy,

it tells the story of Buddy Red Cat, who travels and sees the world in the

company of his like-minded friends, Lefty Mouse and Rev. Tom Toad.

The entire recording is a parable of the working class progressivism of

the first half of the American twentieth century, and even has a song

featuring executed unionist Joe Hill. My Name Is Buddy was accompanied

by a booklet featuring a story and illustration (by Vincent Valdez) for each

track, providing additional context to Buddy's adventures.

Cooder produced and performed on an album for Mavis Staples entitled 

We'll Never Turn Back, which was released on April 24, 2007.

The concept album focused on Gospel songs of the civil rights movement 

and also included two new original songs by Cooder.

Cooder's album I, Flathead was released on June 24, 2008. It is the

completion of his California trilogy. Based on the drag racing culture of the

early 1960s, the album is set on the desert salt flats in southern California.

The disc was also released as a deluxe edition with stories written by Cooder

to accompany the music.

In late 2009, Cooder toured Japan, New Zealand and Australia with 

Nick Lowe, performing some of Lowe's songs and a selection of Cooder's

own material, mainly from the 1970s. Joaquim Cooder (Ry's son) provided

percussion, and Juliette Commagere and Alex Lilly contributed backing

vocals.

The song "Diaraby", which Cooder recorded with Ali Farka Touré, is used

as the theme to The World's Geo Quiz. The World is a radio show distributed

by Public Radio International.

In 2009, Cooder performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature

film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and

speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's 

A People's History of the United States. Cooder performed with Bob Dylan

and Van Dyke Parks on the documentary broadcast on December 13, 2009

on the History Channel. They played "Do Re Mi" and reportedly a couple of

other Guthrie songs that were excluded from the final edit. He also traveled

with the band Los Tigres del Norte and recorded the 2010 album San Patricio

 with the Chieftains, Lila Downs, Liam Neeson, Linda Ronstadt, Van Dyke Parks,

 Los Cenzontles, and Los Tigres.

In June 2010, responding to the passage of Arizona SB 1070, he released the

single "Quicksand", which tells the story of Mexicans attempting to emigrate

to Arizona through the desert. Cooder's critically acclaimed new album 

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, released on August 30, 2011, contains

politically charged songs such as "No Banker Left Behind" which was inspired

by a Robert Scheer column.

In 2011, he published a collection of short stories called Los Angeles Stories,

written about people living in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s. The book's

characters are mostly talented or skilled, clever or hardworking people living in

humble circumstances. With story titles such as "La vida es un sueño" and

"Kill me, por favor", the collection's stories often have a Hispanic theme, and

the book deals partially with Latinos living in Los Angeles during this time.

 

Ry Cooder playing the electric bouzouki while performing with Ricky Skaggs 

and Sharon White, McGlohon Theater, Charlotte, NC, August 19, 2015

An American Songwriter article in 2012 suggested that Cooder's recent string

of solo albums have often taken on an allegorical, sociopolitical bent. Music

journalist Evan Schlansky said that "Cooder’s latest effort, Election Special 

(released August 21, 2012, on Nonesuch/Perro Verde) doesn’t mince words.

It’s designed to send a message to the “'deacons in the High Church of the

Next Dollar'.”The album (Election Special) was composed as his part in support

of the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama in the 2012 American

Presidential Election.

On September 10, 2013, Cooder released Live in San Francisco, featuring the

Corridos Famosos band, including Joachim Cooder on drums; Robert Francis 

on bass; vocalists Terry Evans, Arnold McCuller, and Juliette Commagere; 

Flaco Jiménez on accordion; and the Mexican brass band La Banda Juvenil.

The album was recorded during a two-night run at Great American Music Hall

in San Francisco, August 31 and September 1, 2011. It is Cooder's first official

live recording since Show Time in 1977 (which had also been recorded at

Great American Music Hall).

In 2015, Cooder toured with Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and other members

of The Whites with their “Music for The Good People” show. The tour

continued through into 2016.

On May 11, 2018, Cooder released his first solo album in six years entitled 

The Prodigal Son.

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