Ryland Peter (Ry) Cooder (Los Angeles, March 15, 1947) is an American guitarist and producer.
Ry Cooder received an early age taught by bluesman Reverend Gary Davis. Mid sixties he founded the progressive blues rock group Rising Sons, where among others Taj Mahal belonged. When the group broke up, he became a prominent session musician and he shared the studio with virtually everyone from Captain… Beefheart to Randy Newman.
He worked in the late sixties with the Rolling Stones and was even briefly seen as a potential successor to Brian Jones. Throughout his career, he made a number of albums that make listening as shrewd studies include folk, blues, country and even Hawaiian music.
In the late nineties he initiated the Buena Vista Social Club, a project in which Cuban music-veterans came together and booked worldwide success with their music through albums, concerts and a documentary film.more