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Legendary slide guitarist, three time Grammy Award winner and voted Rolling Stone's 8th greatest guitarist of all time.

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‘The past is immaterial’: Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, reunited after 56 years

At 75 and 80 years old, the much-loved musicians have finally re-formed to pay tribute to their folk-blues heroes. They explain how old records taught them how to play – and how to live

R y Cooder was just 14 when he first saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee playing live. “Just their walk to the stage was unbelievably dramatic,” he remembers. The harmonica and guitar-playing folk-blues duo were appearing at a small club in West Hollywood called the Ash Grove. “They came through the audience,” Cooder says, “and Brownie was walking with difficulty, with a built-up shoe, having had polio. And Sonny was hanging on to him, because he was blind. When you are that age everything you encounter – at least for me, in music – is a tremendous revelation. Particularly if you come from Santa Monica – a wasteland of nothingness!”

Three years later Cooder would be on the same stage, playing guitar in a blues band, the Rising Sons, that included Taj Mahal, a young singer and multi-instrumentalist who shared his tastes. They recorded an album that was rejected by the record company, but eventually appeared in 1992, by which time Cooder and Mahal were big stars. Ry had become a session musician for Neil Young, Captain Beefheart and more, then a versatile guitar hero under his own name, exploring a wide range of American and global styles (he would later travel to Havana to play a crucial role in the success of the Buena Vista Social Club), while Mahal had his own successful solo career. Both became cult heroes for re-working the blues, both worked with the Rolling Stones, both have recorded exquisite albums with Malian stars, and have earned eight Grammys between them.

Now, with Cooder aged 75 and Mahal nearly 80, they have recorded their first album together in 56 years – a tribute to Cooder’s early heroes that has the same title, a similar cover, but not quite the same track list, as an album that Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee released in 1952 on which they were joined by Coyal McMahan on maracas and billed as the Folkmasters. His early heroes were an unusual duo. Celebrities on the New York folk scene in the 1940s, when they worked with Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, they went on to appear in Broadway productions and films, and for decades were regulars at blues festivals in the US and UK. They were deservedly successful but never fashionable, being considered too commercial by those blues fans who preferred the “authentic” styles of Skip James or Bukka White, who had been rediscovered and encouraged back on to the stage. “You couldn’t say that Sonny and Brownie were ever popular in the black communities,” says Cooder, “but they figured out: ‘What do white people like? Whatever they like, we’re going to do it.’”

Cooder and Mahal’s album demonstrates Sonny and Brownie’s range. There are folk standards originally learned from Lead Belly and Guthrie – The Midnight Special, Pick a Bale of Cotton, and I Shall Not Be Moved – and then there are blues, ranging from the upbeat Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee (written by McGhee’s brother Stick McGhee) to a slide-guitar-backed Pawn Shop Blues . Cooder sang and played guitar, mandolin and banjo, Mahal sang and played harmonica, guitar and piano, while Cooder’s son Joachim (in whose house the recordings were made) added percussion and bass. Aside from a few overdubs, each song was done in “just one take, with live vocals”, says Cooder.

The album is a celebration: of Sonny and Brownie, of Cooder’s long-awaited reunion with Mahal, and of the era back in the 1950s and early 1960s when young, mostly white Americans were excitedly discovering the blues. During my phone chat with Cooder in California he stresses how this music changed his life. “I couldn’t concentrate because I kept thinking about songs,” he says. “I got in trouble with teachers and all that crap.” Mahal was captivated by this music, too: “I was never about what everybody else liked – I was lucky enough as a young black man to realise the value of these people, these elders.”

Cooder’s fascination with folk and blues began when he was “five or six years old, just a little kid, not even in the first grade”. His mother had been in the Communist party and one of her friends was a violinist who had been blacklisted in the McCarthy era. “He had these records by Lead Belly – the original 78s. I’d go over – they were neighbours – and listen on their record player. And, as you say, the door opened! It was so fascinating and alluring. And the same man gave me a little guitar and said ‘you can learn to do this’ … and that’s how I got started”.

His parents were less understanding. His mother had met Woody Guthrie and complained “he was very dirty, he hadn’t even bathed”, to which the young Cooder replied: “Sure – because he hobo-ed on trains. What do you expect?” His family were “stone broke” and his father, who liked classical music, “used to say ‘these players you like are just poor field hands. They don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of’. But I never considered that these people were poor – quite the opposite.”

He learned about music at the record store where he bought Sonny and Brownie’s Get On Board. It was “way downtown in Los Angeles, where you could buy these Folkways LPs. Whatever I saw, I would get, if it was New Orleans jazz, blues, hillbilly music – so long as it had that look, with black and white photographs, and text on the cover, I was fascinated by that. It was like a whole education, right there in front of you for $5.98. And I’d say: I’m going to memorise everything on this record, I’m going to learn the tunes and lyrics and try to play along on the guitar”.

Then he would watch his heroes playing at the Ash Grove, “where I would always sit at the counter, maybe eight feet from the stage … for someone like me trying to learn guitar, you want to really pay attention”. When Brownie McGhee was playing, he would ask: “How did that bass run go, how did you do that? And he’d say, ‘well, look here, kid’ and he’d play it. When you get to see these people in person, that’s when you learn something.”

Across the country, in Springfield, Massachusetts, Henry Saint Claire Fredericks, who would become internationally known as Taj Mahal, had first become fascinated by the country blues after hearing the playing of “my nextdoor neighbour who came from Mississippi and was one of my first guitar teachers”. Mahal’s Jamaican father had been a musician, but it wasn’t until he went to Amherst, where he earned a degree in agriculture and animal husbandry, that he became involved in the “coffee house, folk music” scene, and got to hear more country blues. He was aware of Sonny and Brownie’s Get On Board, “but it didn’t come to me the way it came to Ry – it was special for him”, and the first version of The Midnight Special he heard was by Lonnie Donegan. As for Lead Belly, he never heard him until he worked on a dairy farm “and a guy called Pete who was testing the milk said he collected his records”.

Mahal played in different bands, and worked with a guitarist, Jesse Lee Kincaid, who knew Cooder. In 1965, the pair travelled to Los Angeles “specifically to meet Ry Cooder – and with the hope of forming a group with him”. They got on well, Cooder says. “He and I seemed to like exactly the same things, and have the same kind of interest in the old music”. They formed the Rising Sons, a guitar, bass and drums band reworking songs like Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues or Jimmy Reed’s Baby What You Want Me To Do. Mahal remembers: “We were booked by the Martin guitar company to play at a teenage fair, demonstrating electric guitars. Ry played bottleneck and I played harmonica and second guitar. We saw it as great music.” They played at the Ash Grove, acquired a local following, and were signed by Colombia Records. So why was the album not released? “You have to convince these [record label] people, and it’s like convincing a stone obelisk to speak!” says Mahal. Cooder remembers: “The Byrds came out with Mr Tambourine Man, and all of a sudden, everyone was showing up in their Spandex pants and little sunglasses like Jim McGuinn wore.” Singer-songwriters were in fashion, and “me and Taj liked the old songs. But I don’t look back. The past is immaterial”.

Prior to their new album, they had only played together once since the Rising Sons – at a 2014 show in Nashville when Mahal won an Americana Music Award – and they are clearly enjoying their reunion. Asked if Cooder had changed, Mahal says: “Everything about him when I first came to California in 1965 was just amplified by time and accomplishment. There just aren’t people like that. It’s like talking about the Dalai Lama.” Cooder is more down to earth. “Me and Taj are old-timers now. We’re just old cats who want to have a good time together.”

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“Three of those were made. I had one. Ry Cooder had one. Edward Van Halen had one”: Dweezil Zappa on the high-tech custom model that EVH dubbed “The Super Pluto Guitar”

The tale of a truly distinctive instrument that was custom-made for a trio of rock’s most innovative players in the 1980s

Dweezil Zappa may have just auctioned off a huge guitar gear haul , including a replica of the heavily modded Hot Rats Les Paul and his Madonna-clad True Blue Jackson.

However, as he tells Guitar World in a forthcoming interview, one model that he elected to hold on to was the instrument known as ‘the Ripley guitar’ in honor of its inventor, the musician, producer and gear-tinkerer Steve Ripley . 

The decision is perhaps not surprising when you realise that the forward-thinking electric guitar was limited to just three instruments, each of which was placed into the hands of a groundbreaking guitarist – namely, Eddie Van Halen, Ry Cooder and Dweezil Zappa.

“The Ripley guitar that I have is the very unique one that Edward Van Halen used to refer to as ‘the Super Pluto Guitar’,” explains Zappa. 

“They all had these extra electronics, and a two rack space brain that went with it, and a special cable that’s a 12-pin connector between the head and the guitar.”

The rack unit enabled the player to control elements like distortion, compression and even pan individual strings to different areas of the mix.

Eddie Van Halen with his Ripley which has separate panning for each of the 6 strings. Circa 1983. 🎸#evh #Ripley #guitars #pickups pic.twitter.com/NCd7NRAlAw April 21, 2022

“Three of those were made. I had one. Ry Cooder had one. Edward Van Halen had one. And they were so specialized that if one of them broke, you had to call one of the three of us to borrow one to use it again.

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“Ry Cooder had been using the brain that went with my guitar for maybe the last 12 or 13 years. I finally got it back a year or two ago maybe. But he had it for a long time because his stopped working, and Steve Ripley passed away a few years back so nobody knows how to work on these things.”

Later, thanks to a hook-up from Van Halen (who even named an unreleased song in Ripley's honor), Kramer would license and develop an S-style production version. 

That model was known as the Ripley Stereo Guitar and offered much of the same functionality – and has become pretty rare in its own right. 

“They do cool stuff!” summarises Zappa. “I am doing a lot of stuff in my studio which is [mixing in] Dolby Atmos and I can actually take that guitar, I could play something, and I could have it pan all the way around my head.”

Keep an eye out for the full interview on Guitar World and check out Zappa’s full auction sale at AnalogR .

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Matt is Features Editor for GuitarWorld.com. Before that he spent 10 years as a freelance music journalist, interviewing artists for the likes of Total Guitar , Guitarist , Guitar World , MusicRadar , NME.com, DJ Mag and Electronic Sound . In 2020, he launched  CreativeMoney.co.uk , which aims to share the ideas that make creative lifestyles more sustainable. He plays guitar, but should not be allowed near your delay pedals.

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Ry Cooder Concert Setlists & Tour Dates

Ry cooder at the novo, los angeles, ca, usa.

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Ry Cooder at Metropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia, PA, USA

• Understand Your Man
• Guess Things Happen That Way
• Pickin' Time
• Tennessee Flat Top Box
• Don't Take Your Guns to Town
• Hardin Wouldn't Run
• Home of the Blues
• I Walk the Line
• I Still Miss Someone
• Give My Love to Rose

Ry Cooder at Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, USA

Ry cooder at wang theatre, boston, ma, usa, ry cooder at ryman auditorium, nashville, tn, usa, ry cooder at l'olympia bruno coquatrix, paris, france.

• Nobody's Fault but Mine
• Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right
• Straight Street
• Go Home Girl
• Harbor of Love
• The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor)
• Gotta Be Lovin Me
• Vigilante Man
• You Must Unload
• Jesus on the Mainline
• How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?

Ry Cooder at Cadogan Hall, London, England

• Jesus and Woody

Ry Cooder at Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Scotland

Ry cooder at national stadium, dublin, ireland, ry cooder at kursaal, ostend, belgium.

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• Jesus on the Mainline ( 47 )
• The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor) ( 44 )
• How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? ( 38 )
• Go Home Girl ( 37 )
• Vigilante Man ( 37 )

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Aaron Keylock Miller Anderson Miller Anderson Band The Black Crowes Frank Boeijen Peter te Bos Brewster Brothers Jackson Browne Jackson Browne & David Lindley Jimmy Buffett J.J. Cale Calexico The Cinelli Brothers Ry Cooder & David Lindley Rita Coolidge The Cramps The Spencer Davis Group Willy DeVille Mike Doughty Bob Dylan Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Drew Emmitt Guy Forsyth Go West Tony Hadley The Hamsters John Hiatt & The Goners Charlie Hunter Trio Bennie Jolink Tom Jones Mark Karan Jorma Kaukonen Al Kooper Joey Landreth Jeff Lang Bettye LaVette David Lindley & Hani Naser Little Village Manfred Mann’s Earth Band Mojo Express Gaby Moreno Erik Neimeijer Willie Nelson North Mississippi Allstars Ocobar Poppa Dawg The Radiators Bonnie Raitt Revólver Chris and Rich Robinson

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260 people have seen Ry Cooder live.

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Taj Mahal  

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Taj Mahal (born May 17, 1942) is the stage and recording name of American Grammy Award-winning blues musician Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, hailing from Harlem, New York, U.S.

Strongly influenced by his gospel singing mother and jazz musician and composing father – who Ella Fitzgerald had referred to as “The Genius” – Fredericks was exposed to a genre-spanning collection of music from a young age. Despite being a talented and devoted farmer the bluesman decided to pursue his music career and moved to Santa Monica, California, U.S. and formed the band Rising Sons alongside Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid. The band signed with Columbia Records however proved to be commercially unviable so Fredericks went solo. In 1968 Taj Mahal released his eponymous debut album, introducing the musician’s stripped back traditional brand of blues.

It wasn’t long before the album became a classic and paved the way for “Natch’l Blues” also in 1968 and “Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home” in 1969. With these successes Fredericks was afforded the luxuries of working with some of the most prominent rock and blues artists, including the Rolling Stones. The ’70s represented Mahal experimenting with Caribbean themes and rhythms with “Happy Just to Be Like I Am” in 1971 and the brass-induced double live album “The Real Thing” in 1972.

After moving to Warner Bros. in 1976 and releasing the albums “Music Fuh Ya’” (1976), the soundtrack album “Brothers” (1977), and “Evolution” (1977), Fredericks moved to Hawaii to explore the island's musical tradition. After a ten-year hiatus from recording, the iconic bluesman returned with the album “Taj” in 1987, and a string of acclaimed children’s albums alongside Shake Sugaree followed. After earning a Grammy nomination in 1991 for scoring the play “Mule Bone”, Fredericks returned to his extensive recording and touring schedule on the Private Music label.

Throughout the ‘90s the blues musician covered more musical ground drifting into rock, pop, and R&B with the albums “Like Never Before” in 1991, “Dancing the Blues” in 1993, “Phantom Blues” in 1996, and the Grammy Award-winning “Señor Blues” in 1997. Fredericks subsequently collaborated with classical indian musicians to craft “Mumtaz Mahal” in 1995, and released the Hawaiian themed album “Kulunjan” in 1999. With an all-star list of guest including Ziggy Marley, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, “Maestro” was issued in 2008, followed by the Christmas album, "Talkin' Christmas" with the Blind Boys of Alabama in 2014.

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Best concert I've seen lately. Great engagement with the audience and awesome energy from the band. Taj played at least 4 instruments and was in great voice. Although confined to a chair for the performance, he connected with the crowd as he shuffled and danced on and off the stage, we loved it! Keb played flawless guitar and was in fine voice as well but acknowledged his affection for Taj during his introduction of the legend. He said "without this man I'd still be playing the Pied Piper in Compton". One of the highlights for me was hearing "She caught the Katy" sung by the master. Electric. Solid set, solid band. If you go, watch for Taj daughters in backup singer roles. Obvious they inherited their father's stage presence as they danced and mugged in the background, not distracting, just part of the show. Special call out to the opener Jontavious Willis. The 21 year old college student from Georgia, praised as the next thing in blues by Taj himself, played an impressive 45 minute set, all alone, sitting in a chair with his guitar. Had the audience in the palm of his hand from the first song. Highlight was him creating a killer blues original from a shout out in the audience. Do yourself a favor, go see TajMo.

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When I was a young boy, my father was really into old blues music. One day when I was still a young child he introduce me to a blues musician called Taj Mahal. I didnt know it then, but as I got older into my teenage years Taj Mahal become one of my favorite musicians and greatly influenced how I approached life.

So it only made sense that I could honor my father and Taj by seeing him live in concert right? My buddy helped me find his tour dates and we split the tickets to go see him. Well the day finally arrived and we got to the House of Blues where he was performing. It wasn't too crowded and the stage was nicely light. He took the stage and began playing songs off his 1991 album Mule Bones.

Seeing him live I discovered he played a wide array of instruments including guitar, banjo, piano and harmonica, and increased my respect for him more. The man is so talented on a guitar, he makes playing it look so effortless and has such a wonderful voice as well. It was definitely a treat to see him live and really understand how talented this man is.

Although blues musician Taj Mahal, real name Henry Saint Clair Fredericks is fast approaching his 75th birthday you cannot deny the energetic manner is which he performs his live show. There is a huge sense of importance when he performs older tracks and he knows how much resonance they hold with the audience gathered here tonight.

Therefore there is a huge sincerity in the way in which Taj delivers the classics such as 'Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes' and 'Queen Bee'. There is also a fantastic sense of fun involved throughout as so much of his music has a fantastically upbeat tempo which you can really tap your feet along to. The audience claps the musicians along intently as they perform aptly bluesy instrumentals during a cover of 'Blues With a Feeling' by Rabon Tarrant. The man himself has such a warm, exciting personality and has a really natural interaction with his fans that only comes with so many years on the circuit. There is no doubt that should his health allow it, he will continue to tour for years to come.

I saw the Taj Mahal Trio at the SF Jazz center this evening. I'd listened to his music for years but this is the first time I have seen him live. Most enjoyable. He played a number of songs he is known for. He played a number of instruments. All quite entertaining and the audience seemed to quite enjoy the performance.

Excellent show, the atmosphere was great!very happy with the seats and the full show! His daughters are extremely talented and fun to watch as well!

Thank you for coming to seattle!

Taj and Keb were Great! The venue was a great little place to see them. The opening act Guy Davis was also good. I am glad I went to this show!

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The Ry Cooder albums you should definitely own

Whether reshaping roots music or making emotive soundtracks, Ry Cooder’s albums have always reflected that X factor called class - and these are his beat

With “a thimbleful of ambition”, Californian singer-guitarist Ry Cooder has travelled further than most over the past six decades. Throughout the 70s and into the early 80s, Cooder’s remarkable run of solo albums established him as one of America’s great adventurers. 

He dug deep into the music of his homeland and beyond to reshape largely forsaken folk, blues, gospel and country songs – plus Tex-Mex, Zydeco and Hawaiian music – for a new generation of roots enthusiasts. The one constant was his peerless musicianship, from his trademark slide guitar to mandolin, Dobro and Mexican 12-string. 

Cooder began in the 60s as a hotshot for hire, playing on albums by Captain Beefheart , Neil Young , Taj Mahal (with whom he also briefly formed Rising Sons), The Monkees, Arlo Guthrie and, most famously, the Rolling Stones . Cooder released his self-titled debut in 1970. 

Exploring rhythm, mood and texture, he brought fresh resonance to the emotional terrain of the music he uncovered. 

“I wasn’t thinking of writing any songs, it never occurred to me,” he told this writer in 2013. “I loved the old songs, especially the lyrics and language, the vocabulary.” 

Diversity was paramount. While Hawaiian slack-key guitar and accordion were the guiding features of 1976’s Chicken Skin Music , ragtime swing dominated studio follow-up Jazz, which in turn made way for old-school R&B on Bop Till You Drop . But the shift into film soundtracks had reduced his solo output to a trickle by the mid-80s. Get Rhythm , released in ’87, would be his last album billed exclusively under his own name for another 18 years. 

Aside from Cooder’s earlier work on the Performance soundtrack, director Walter Hill was the first to commission him for film scores. The 1980 western The Long Riders was a perfect vehicle for his evocative sense of place and time. It was the majestic Paris, Texas , however, that placed him in the perfect emotional and musical setting. 

Cooder’s passage through the 90s was largely taken up by collaborative projects, including the award-winning Buena Vista Social Club , on which he produced an array of veteran Cuban musicians. He re-emerged for a glorious second solo run in 2005, starting with Chávez Ravine and continuing into 2022’s Taj Mahal studio reunion Get On Board . At 76, Cooder is living proof of the old adage that class is indeed permanent.

Into The Purple Valley (Reprise, 1972)  

Cooder had already established his MO by the time of his second album: re-contextualising music from the past for a new generation. Eclectic flavours of folk, blues, gospel and more abound as Cooder expertly tackles a variety of largely obscure songs. 

Agnes Cunningham’s bitter social commentary How Can You Keep On Moving (Unless You Migrate Too) , lamenting the hostility towards migrant workers during the Great Depression, has lost none of its power or relevance over the years. But Cooder truly excels on a pair of Woody Guthrie tunes, one being a paredback version of Vigilante Man .

Paradise And Lunch (Reprise, 1974)  

Jazz, blues and earthy American roots music are given a thorough makeover on Cooder’s fourth solo record, aided by an impressive roll call of guests. The traditional Tamp ‘Em Up Solid is fired by a funky groove and a male choir led by gospel great Bobby King. Jesus On The Mainline is equally infectious, as is a joyous cover of The Valentinos’ 60s soul classic It’s All Over Now , a major signpost for Cooder during his teenage years. 

Everything is wonderfully knitted together by his extraordinary guitar playing, which combines sensitivity, style and an intuitive grasp of the source material.

Boomer’s Story (Reprise, 1972)

Sandwiched between Into The Purple Valley and Paradise And Lunch , the highest compliment you can pay to Cooder’s third album is that it stands comparison to both. His slide playing is never less than exemplary, at its best on the title track and a sublime instrumental version of Memphis soul standard The Dark End Of The Street . 

Blues veteran Sleepy John Estes picks guitar and sings lead on a fine reworking of his own President Kennedy , while Randy Newman’s doleful piano turn on American Civil War anthem Rally ‘Round The Flag strips away the patriotism in favour of something darker and more satirical

Paris, Texas (Warner Bros, 1985)

The dawn of the 80s saw Cooder devote more of his time to soundtrack work than to solo endeavours, beginning with the score for The Long Riders and bayou thriller Southern Comfort . But he saved his best, arguably, for Wim Wenders’ deeply atmospheric road movie Paris, Texas , starring Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski. 

Cooder conjures a sparse, imagistic soundtrack that perfectly captures the beauty and loneliness of the Southwestern desert, as well as the characters’ sense of dislocation, using Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground as a template.

Talking Timbuktu (World Circuit, 1994)  

Cooder’s growing interest in the possibilities of world music had already led him to a Grammy-winning collaboration with Hindustani classical musician VM Bhatt (1993’s A Meeting By The River ) by the time he hooked up with another kindred spirit, Ali Farka Touré. 

The Malian guitarist shared Cooder’s pan-continental approach to the blues on the absorbing Talking Timbuktu , their rootsy improvisations fleshed out by a stellar guest. The overall feel is both relaxed and investigative, as Touré’s multi-linguistic vocal skills are framed by electro-acoustic guitars, six-string banjo and West African fiddle.

Chávez Ravine (Nonsuch, 2005)  

Trailed as “a post-World War II-era American narrative of ‘cool cats’, radios, UFO sightings, J Edgar Hoover, red scares and baseball”, Cooder’s twelfth solo record (his first in nearly 20 years) highlighted the true story of a Chicano community displaced from 50s Los Angeles by rapacious housing developers. 

Cooder and his ensemble – many of Mexican-American descent – fashion a richly-layered, vibrant concept piece that sets out to capture the essence of the times and all its attendant culture, class politics and racial injustice. It was the first in a trilogy that also includes My Name Is Buddy (2007) and I, Flathead (2008).

Chicken Skin Music (Reprise, 1976)  

While punk burned and stadium rock grew ever more preposterous, Cooder simply deepened his fascination with porous music that refused to be defined by location or the cultural zeitgeist. On Chicken Skin Music , Cooder and accordion great Flaco Jiménez make dark corrido magic of Lead Belly’s Goodnight Irene , and reposition Ben E King’s Stand By Me as sumptuous, Mexican-flavoured gospel. 

Cooder’s other secret weapon is Hawaiian slack-key guitar legend Gabby Pahinui, who plays on Chloe . The diversity is audacious, from Jim Reeves’s He’ll Have To Go to a Polynesian detour around Blind Alfred Reed.

Bop Till You Drop (Warner Bros, 1979)  

Arriving on the heels of 1978’s Jazz , a record that Cooder came to see as a failed experiment and all but disowned in later years, Bop Till You Drop saw him dive into 50s and 60s R&B and rock‘n’roll. The emphasis here is as much on vocals as on guitar, from a serviceable version of Elvis Presley’s Little Sister (with gospel vocal backing) to the harmony-rich take on Sidney Bailey’s The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor).  

Elsewhere, Cooder duets with an in-form Chaka Khan on the mighty Don’t Mess Up A Good Thing , plus the album’s sole original, Down In Hollywood .

Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down (Nonsuch, 2011)  

Cooder at his most polemic, rife with anti-Republican sentiment and chastising those responsible for the financial crisis of the late 00s. His anger is palpable on No Banker Left Behind , which takes aim at bank bailouts and corporations profiting from the subsequent recession. 

The outlaw spirit is very much alive in El Corrido de Jesse James , which finds America’s old anti-hero promising bloody vengeance against these modern-day thieves. Cooder and his band shift between country-blues, tejano, ragtime and folk to telling effect, the standout being John Lee Hooker For President .

...and one you should avoid

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Blue City OST (Warner Bros, 1986)  

You won’t find any stinkers in Ry Cooder’s back catalogue. Perhaps the more appropriate frame of criteria when judging his work would be those records that are less essential than others. His score for the 1993 historical western Geronimo: An American Legend has its moments, but tends not to lingerin the memory. 

The same can be said of his soundtrack to 1998’s political comedy Primary Colours , although it ranks a little higher than Blue City ’s score, which suffers from too many synthesisers and an overly slick 80s production, despite the inclusion of notable figures like Benmont Tench, Jim Dickinson, Steve Porcaro and Jim Keltner.

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Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2008, and sister title Prog since its inception in 2009. Regular contributor to Uncut magazine for over 20 years. Other clients include Word magazine, Record Collector, The Guardian, Sunday Times, The Telegraph and When Saturday Comes . Alongside Marc Riley, co-presenter of long-running A-Z Of David Bowie podcast. Also appears twice a week on Riley’s BBC6 radio show, rifling through old copies of the NME and Melody Maker in the Parallel Universe slot. Designed Aston Villa’s kit during a previous life as a sportswear designer. Geezer Butler told him he loved the all-black away strip.

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RY COODER The Slide Area (Official 1982 UK 13" x 9.5" tour programme packed with photographs, information, quotes and informative text, nice cover featuring the album artwork on the front and advert for the album and back catalogue on the back. This copy displays only light signs of wear & age, a really nice example).

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