Ry Cooder - Biography

Last Editor: ZijadK				Ry Cooder Biography -   Name : Ry Cooder Date of birth : 15 March 1947 Place of birth : Los Angeles, California, USA Birth name : Ryland Peter Cooder

Ry Cooder Trivia -

Plays slide guitar in band "little Village". Inspired Duane Allman to learn how to play slide guitar. Father of Joachim Cooder.

Ry Cooder Detailed Biography -

Born on March 15th of 1947, Ry Cooder began his career in 1963 at the ripe old age of 16 in a blues band with Jackie DeShannon and then formed the short-lived Rising Sons in 1965 with Taj Mahal. Since that time, Ry Cooder has become one of the worlds greatest unknown guitarists. His mastery of the guitar has traversed styles from Carribean flavors, to Civil War ballads, to Indian sitar, just to name a few. And throughout, "The blues". The fact that he doesn't fit into any one genre has somewhat attributed to his lack of commercial success. That and his lack of interest in the trappings of fame. Where you undoubtedly "have" heard Ry Cooder's talents without even knowing it are in his body of soundtrack works. Paris Texas, Dead Man Walking, Crossroads, and Southern Comfort are just a few in a long list. Ry Cooder's contributions to slide guitar, both electric and acoustic are on par with masters from Son House to Muddy Waters. The emotion and subtle nuances he employes are breathtaking to the ear as well as the soul. Ry Cooder's main acoustic guitar these days, according to his guitar repairman Rick Turner, is a Gibson Roy Smeck model from the mid-30s. Frets were added to this guitar, which was originally designed for lap-style playing. Cooder still owns a 1950s Martin 000-18, which Turner believes he used to record the theme from Paris, Texas. He also uses a host of other guitars that have been assembled from strat, les paul, and even lapsteel parts. Ry Cooder doesn't use any picks, he prefers the sound of fingertips and natural fingernails on the strings. He uses heavy glass slides which he wears on his little finger. The wobbly vibrato he executes by waving the slide in a fan-like pattern is part of his trademark sound. He also adjusts the strings on his guitars to a flat vs. radiused setting. This lends to his technique of allowing adjoining strings to ring out buzz free without dampening them. Ry uses a variety of tunings. The two he uses most for his recorded blues are Open D and Open E. His favorite for blues being Open D. This because he says it "lends itself to a darker sounding blues". Although prolific in writing soundtrack scores he hasn't graced the US with a tour schedule in a very long time. One can only hope... 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, and having played with The Seeds. 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, 1920's jazz; Bob 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. 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 1960s, 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.