Ryland Cooder

Born: Los Ageles, Ca.

May 15, 1947

Genre Style: Rock, Blues, World

Ry Cooder is basically the ultimate musical detective and a god-tier slide guitarist. Born in LA in 1947, he was a total prodigy, picking up the guitar as a kid and playing with blues legend Taj Mahal while he was still a teenager. By his early twenties, his incredible slide work was so respected that icons like the Rolling Stones and Captain Beefheart were calling him up to add some magic to their tracks.

Instead of chasing cheap pop hits, Ry spent the '70s and '80s digging up forgotten musical treasures. He became a bit of a musical anthropologist, blending everything from Tex-Mex accordion and Hawaiian slack-key guitar to old-school gospel and dust-bowl folk. He also mastered the art of film scores, creating that famously haunting, lonely guitar soundtrack for the movie Paris, Texas.

His absolute biggest moment came in 1997 when he went to Havana and helped put together the Buena Vista Social Club. He gathered a group of incredible, legendary Cuban musicians who had been totally overlooked by the mainstream, and the resulting album became a massive global phenomenon. Today, he's still widely looked up to as a master collaborator who uses his guitar to connect different cultures and tell great stories.

💿 1. Solo Studio Albums

• Ry Cooder* (1970)
• Into the Purple Valley* (1972)
• Boomer's Story* (1972)
• Paradise and Lunch* (1974)
• Chicken Skin Music* (1976)
• Jazz* (1978)
• Bop Till You Drop* (1979)
• Borderline* (1980)
• The Slide Area* (1982)
• Get Rhythm* (1987)
• Chávez Ravine* (2005)
• My Name Is Buddy* (2007)
• I, Flathead* (2008)
• Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down* (2011)
• Election Special* (2012)
• The Prodigal Son* (2018)

🎬 2. Original Film Soundtracks

• The Long Riders* (1980)
• Southern Comfort* (1981)
• The Border* (1982)
• Paris, Texas* (1985)
• Alamo Bay* (1985)
• Blue City* (1986)
• Crossroads* (1986)
• Johnny Handsome* (1989)
• Trespass* (1993)
• Geronimo: An American Legend* (1993)
• Last Man Standing* (1996)
• The End of Violence* (1997)
• Primary Colors* (1998)

🤝 3. Major Collaborations & Live Albums

• Jamming with Edward!* (1972) — with Nicky Hopkins, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts
• Show Time* (1977) — Live album with Flaco Jiménez
• Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder* (Recorded 1966, Released 1992)
• A Meeting by the River* (1993) — with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
• Talking Timbuktu* (1994) — with Ali Farka Touré