Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in the American roots music, and, more recently, for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries. Cooder was ranked number 8 on Rolling Stone’s “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”

Ry Cooder got his start playing blues with Taj Mahal in a band called “Rising Sons” in the 1960s. He then played briefly with Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band and Randy Newman. Cooder later gain notoriety as a session guitarist when he played with the Rolling Stones in 1968 and 1969, playing on some of their best work like “Let it Bleed” and “Exile on Main Street”. It was during this stint with the Rolling Stones that Ry Cooder taught Keith Richards the Open G Tuning that Keith Richards used on many of the Rolling Stones’ albums.

Throughout the 1970s, Cooder released a series of Warner Bros. Records albums that showcased his guitar work. Cooder, like a musicologist or treasure hunter, explored bygone musical genres and found great old-time recordings which he then, as a musician, personalized with sensitive, updated reworkings.

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 and earned Cooder a Grammy Award.

_{Sources: Wikipedia}