Ry Cooder

[jdchapman]

I've been listening to a lot of early and middle Ry Cooder lately. Great playing, great arrangements, and great engineering and production.

Anybody have anything similar to suggest I may not know about? This is the decade where my parents stopped buying new music and I was too young to buy it myself.

[Bob Visentin]

How about John Hiatt? Ry Cooder played with him some (Little Village)and he often uses mandolin.

[lenf12]

He did a tune or two with the Tumbling Stones or Rolling Rocks...no wait, that's a beer...something like that. Wish I could remember but "you can't always get what you want".

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[Marcus CA]

How about David Lindley (solo, with Wally Ingram, or with El Rayo X)? He also has played with Cooder occasionally over the years.

[Marty Jacobson]

Check out JJ Cale and Mark Knopfler's solo albums, if you're not already familiar with them. And The Band, of course.

[Spruce]

How about David Lindley (solo, with Wally Ingram, or with El Rayo X)? He also has played with Cooder occasionally over the years.

Try to find a live recording of Ry and Mr. Dave in Osaka, Japan in 1979...
It's my "go-to" lap steel lesson tape, and is just an amazing performance all the way around...
Church music...
Here's a taste:

[stratman62]

Have a listen to Levon Helm, Dirt farmer, and electric dirt.

[jdchapman]

Thanks All! I knew most of this stuff, but Lindley is knew to me.

[Shelagh Moore]

Also a recommendation here to seek out some David Lindley stuff... he's an excellent multi-instrumentalist.

[Marty Jacobson]

The OP might enjoy Mandolin Graffiti. https://bruceharvie.bandcamp.com/alb...dolin-graffiti

Harry Manx is amazing, he transitions from Eastern sounds to Delta blues in a heartbeat and has a command of microtonal subtleties that is astounding.


This one's a little more like Ry Cooder, check out that seamless swap from Hawaiian to Spanish style playing.

[Eric F.]

Check out Geoff Muldaur. He's also kind a kind of encyclopedia of American roots music.

[mandolinstew]

I have a live Geoff Muldaur with Jim Kweskin and David Grisman.Great American Music Hall.CD came out a few years ago.

[Bill Schmidt]

Hey JD. I'm a looong time RC fan, wore the grooves off all the early albums. While I agree with the suggestions here (especially DL), no one else does it for me like Ry. That said, lately I've become a big Mandolin Orange fan (heard about them here on MC). While scouring Youtube for stuff of theirs I stumbled this, a live recreation/interpretation of Boomer's Story featuring cameos of Emily Franz and Andrew Marlin of MO. If nothing else you have to give credit for taste and ambition, but actually the project turned out nicely imho. Cheers, Bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD4T7kNXxsg

[Steve Ostrander]

Huge David Lindley fan here. Been listening since El Rayo X formed in the late seventies.

[Paul Kotapish]

Lots of information about David Lindley at his website.

Be sure to check out his instrument gallery for some serious axe envy. That's a fraction of his collection. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Dave at his home some years ago, and every surface of every room was piled with instruments, CDs, and music-related paraphernalia.

Take a look at his discography and you'll realize that you've been listening to him for years. His screaming slide work with Jackson Browne is particularly great, and all of the El Rayo-X stuff is worth having. There's a recent live duet record with Lindley and Browne that features some gorgeous CBOM work, and Lindley's tasty mandolin work is on scores of records.

And definitely check out Geoff Muldaur. Great stuff.

Taj Mahal ploughs a very similar musical furrow, too. He and Ry had collaborated over the years, too.

[Paul Kotapish]

And be sure to get your hands on some of those gorgeous Waterlily Acoustics recordings pairing Ry, Taj, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, David Hidalgo, and others with amazing Indian musicians, most prominently, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Bhatt is the master of the mohan vina, a slide guitar with sympathetic drone strings that he devised. As noted above, Harry Manx plays in a related style.

[MediumMando5722]

Check out JJ Cale and Mark Knopfler's solo albums, if you're not already familiar with them. And The Band, of course.

Mark Knopfler is a national treasure and one of the most underrated guitarists ever. There's an amazing isolated vocal and guitar track from "Sultans of Swing" on YouTube to backup my claim.

[lenf12]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for mentioning Lindley's slide work on the Jackson Brown records. That's my absolute favorite electric slide tone and what I try to emulate on the mandocaster, although with less satisfying results.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[Marcus CA]

There isn't much video of Cooder on mandolin, but ...

[Perry]

I'm at a loss as to who might sound similar to Ry Cooder; he really is one of a kind. For another musician who has "Great playing, great arrangements, and great engineering and production" and who explores many styles like Ry I suggest listening to David Bromberg.

https://youtu.be/-bCoNoQqSPI

[gtani7]

from the South Asia subcon: Doug Cox and Salil Bhatt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJfpqh0CWRo

U Srinivas, who played in John McLaughlin's Shakti for a while and passed away a couple years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewnCY6eEJKs

Debashish Bhattacharya: http://www.npr.org/event/music/24453...y-desk-concert