The Ry Cooder Story

1984 was a busy year for Cooder. Not only did he produce the soundtracks for Paris, Texas and Streets of Fire almost simultaneously. He also ended up juggling both jobs with Alamo Bay, Louis Malle's drama about the clashes between Texas and Vietnamese fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. Cooder saw the movie as a simple working man's story in the tradition of John Ford. His goal was "a Chinese cowboy...

There were a lot of what-ifs when it came to the score for 1984's Streets of Fire. After rejecting James Horner's compositions, director Walter Hill had a movie that had no music. Cooder, on the other hand, had music that had no movie! His score for Stroker Ace had been rejected by director Hal Needham. So it was a stroke of luck for both of them. Hill's ultra-artificial "rock & roll fable" ma...

German director Wim Wenders first met Cooder during the production of Hammett, his first Hollywood film. He wanted him to score the movie, but the studio didn't want a guitarist, they wanted a more traditional composer. When Wenders made Paris, Texas a few years later, he could make his own decisions. Naturally, he hired Cooder. Cooder's majestic soundtrack, completely original for its time, becam...

From 1980 to '82, Cooder had made no less than two solo albums, two live albums, and three film scores. But '83 was different. Apparently in need of a change of scenery, Cooder instead worked with a number of very interesting musicians, including Eric Clapton, Duane Eddy, T-Bone Burnett, and John Hiatt. He also toured quite a bit, by his standards. There's a little more (live) music than usual in...

With his ninth studio album, Cooder maneuvered himself into a dead end. While not a bad record by any means, it is one of his few controversial works and received some unfriendly reviews at the time. Cooder must have felt the same way, because after The Slide Area he stopped making solo albums for no less than five years. While he turned mostly to film scoring, he also scored a number of commercia...

A movie about the border region between Texas and Mexico was naturally made for Ry Cooder – and vice versa. The Border defies easy categorization. Directed by Tony Richardson and starring Jack Nicholson, it’s half cop thriller, half refugee tragedy. For the soundtrack, Cooder assembled much of his usual band: Jim Dickinson on piano, John Hiatt on guitar and vocals, Jim Keltner on drums and Tim Dru...

In this episode we discuss Cooder's second solo foray into the world of cinema, 1981's Southern Comfort. Cooder's second collaboration with action champion Walter Hill is a relatively unknown film, but one that is highly regarded among those in the know. The British Guardian even called it a masterpiece. The movie takes us deep into the swamps of the American South and into the world of the Cajun...

As we heard in our last episode, Cooder was on the verge of becoming a full-fledged film composer in the early 1980s. But he kept the beat for two more studio albums, and Borderline was the first of them, released just a few months after The Long Riders premiered in theaters. It's another foray into the world of soul and R&B and well worth a listen. This podcast frequently uses small snippets...

In 1980, Cooder scored his first Hollywood movie, Walter Hill’s western The Long Riders about the adventures of the James-Younger Gang in the American Midwest. Cooder spent three months researching the period. He came up with authentic polkas, square dances, waltzes and other period evocations, and gathered a group of trusted collaborators. His sensitive score won him the first major award of his...

Arlo Guthrie, the fifth child of Woody Guthrie, America's legendary Dust Bowl troubadour, shot to fame with "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," a nearly 19-minute talking blues song. Successful albums, drug anthems and even a major Hollywood movie followed - and a five-year collaboration with Ry Cooder, who appears on several of Arlo's albums. They even toured together in 1971. This bonus episode of T...

Today we celebrate Randy Newman's 80th birthday with a bonus episode. Of course, it is about the long collaboration between Ry Cooder and Randy Newman that started in the late 60s and lasted almost thirty years. It's another Warner Brothers connection that has produced numerous albums ("12 Songs", "Sail Away") and concerts, but surprisingly only one movie ("Performance"). This podcast frequently u...

Chicken Skin Music and Jazz were commercial failures, so Cooder had to try something new again. For Bop Till You Drop, he turned to rhythm and blues and digital recording. The result was absolutely stunning. Bop Till You Drop, the first official digitally recorded rock-pop album in history, is an extraordinary record - a compelling combination of form and content. This episode tells the story of t...

In 1978, Cooder made his most controversial record: Jazz. It was his seventh studio album, and for it he combined traditional jazz with Caribbean music, adding a 19th-century habanera, songs from minstrelsy and black vaudeville, and chamber arrangements composed by early jazz musicians. Jazz holds a special place in Cooder's oeuvre – not only because it plows different ground than virtually any ot...

After Chicken Skin Music, Ry Cooder embarked on his first major national and international tour. This episode tells the story of the so-called Chicken Skin Revue, for which Cooder assembled a huge all-American band consisting of his black backup trio, Flaco Jiménez's Mexicans, and an American-Italian saxophonist. The U.S. leg of the tour resulted in Cooder's first live album, Show Time (1977). The...

Chicken Skin Music would be Cooder's most ambitious project to date. An entirely new style, more than two years in the making. Cooder incorporated two new musical ingredients: Tex-Mex, as played by accordion wizard Flaco Jiménez, and Hawaiian music, as played by Gabby Pahinui and Atta Isaacs. Gospel singers Bobby King, Terry Evans and Herman Johnson completed this exciting all-American band. The a...

On Paradise And Lunch (1974), Cooder made several fundamental changes. First, he said goodbye to farmer tunes and dustbowl blues. Second, he worked on the songs more thoroughly in advance and planned the recordings much more carefully. And third, he used male backup singers for the first time, a trick that would come to define Cooder's style. This episode of the podcast covers the entire album as...

On his third album, as on his previous recordings, Ry Cooder presents the result of a musical treasure hunt that is also a journey through time. Boomer's Story (1972) looks to masters like Sleepy John Estes and Skip James, but also to younger, lost and neglected pieces of American folk and blues. Episode 6 of the podcast also introduces many Cooder sessions from 1972-73. This podcast frequently us...

After covering important session work from 1970-71, including Little Feat, Crazy Horse, and numerous singer-songwriters, this episode introduces Cooder's next solo album, 1972's Into The Purple Valley. It's another masterpiece with classics like Money Honey, On A Monday and Vigilante Man. This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review,...

After signing with Warner Bros. in 1969, Ry Cooder released his self-titled debut album in 1970. Featuring Cooder classics such as "Do Re Mi," "Alimony" and "Dark Is The Night," it's the first in a long line of solo masterpieces in which he uniquely reimagines old blues, Dust Bowl ballads and obscure rock 'n' roll. This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episod...

After the Rising Sons disbanded, Cooder quickly became a sought-after session musician. His bottleneck sounds were new and unique at the time. No one was playing like him, and many had never heard such sounds before. In 1967, he featured prominently on Captain Beefheart’s album „Safe As Milk“. In 1968 and ‘69, he contributed to several albums and side projects of the Rolling Stones. This podcast f...

In August 1967, a year after the Rising Sons disbanded, Taj Mahal recorded his self-titled debut album. It has long been considered one of the great blues albums. And Ry Cooder was on board! He played rhythm guitar and mandolin on five of the album's eight tracks. This bonus episode of The Ry Cooder Story takes a look at the production, the songs, and the aftermath. This podcast frequently uses sm...

The Rising Sons, featuring Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, were ”one of the great what-might-have-been stories of Sixties rock“ (Rolling Stone magazine) and some “pretty hot shit back in ’65 and ’66 when they were holding forth in the clubs on the Sunset Strip“ (nodepression.com). It's a dazzling tale of an early fusion of pop and blues music, of high hopes and narrow failures, of rather different styles...

Ry Cooder was an early starter. He got his first guitar at the age of four, was playing the records of his favorite blues musicians by the age of twelve, and was performing on stage at the famous folk club The Ash Grove by the age of fifteen. This episode describes his childhood and youth up to his first gigs with Jackie DeShannon and Pamela Polland. This podcast frequently uses small snippets of...

We are excited to introduce you to a new podcast: The Ry Cooder Story , a podcast dedicated to the music, films and career of slide guitar master Ry Cooder. In this short message, you will learn about the concept and creation of the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.