Ryland Peter Cooder (born March 15, 1947) is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer.

He has played with John Lee Hooker, Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, Gordon Lightfoot, Ali Farka Touré, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, David Lindley, the Chieftains, Warren Zevon, Manuel Galbán, the Doobie Brothers, Little Feat, and Carla Olson and the Textones (on record and film).

He formed the band Little Village, and produced the album Buena Vista Social Club (1997), which became a worldwide hit; Wim Wenders directed the documentary film of the same name (1999), which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000.

The trio was not successful, but reflecting his early exposure to the instrument, Cooder subsequently applied banjo tunings and the three finger roll to guitar.

[8] Cooder first attracted attention playing with Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, notably on the 1967 album Safe as Milk, after previously having worked with Taj Mahal and Ed Cassidy in the Rising Sons.

[9] This aborted any opportunity for breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet,[10] effectively quitting both the event and the band on the spot.

During this period, Cooder joined with Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and longtime Rolling Stones sideman Nicky Hopkins to record Jamming with Edward!.

Cooder also played slide guitar for the 1970 film soundtrack Performance, which contained Jagger's first solo single, "Memo from Turner".

[12] He also played bottleneck guitar and mandolin on two tracks on the Gordon Lightfoot album Sit Down Young Stranger (later re-titled If You Could Read My Mind), recorded in late 1969 and released in early 1970.

Thus, on his breakthrough album, Into the Purple Valley, he chose unusual instrumentations and arrangements of blues, gospel, calypso, and country songs (giving a tempo change to the cowboy ballad "Billy the Kid").

His later 1970s albums (with the exception of Jazz, which explored ragtime/vaudeville) do not fall under a single genre description, but his self-titled first album could be described as blues; Into the Purple Valley, Boomer's Story, and Paradise and Lunch as folk and blues; Chicken Skin Music and Showtime as a mix of Tex-Mex and Hawaiian; Bop Till You Drop as 1950s R&B; and Borderline and Get Rhythm as rock-based.

Cooder is credited on Van Morrison's 1979 album Into the Music, for slide guitar on the song "Full Force Gale".

He is also credited for guitars on several 1971 recordings by Nancy Sinatra that were produced by Andy Wickman and Lenny Waronker – "Is Anybody Goin' To San Antone", "Hook & Ladder", and "Glory Road".

Cooder based this soundtrack and title song "Paris, Texas" on Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)", which he described as "the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music".

Cooder's music also appeared on two episodes of the television program Tales From the Crypt: "The Man Who Was Death" and "The Thing From the Grave".

The album, released in 1994, also featured longtime Cooder collaborator Jim Keltner on drums, veteran blues guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, jazz bassist John Patitucci and African percussionists and musicians including Hamma Sankare and Oumar Toure.

[23][24] Cooder's 2005 album Chávez Ravine was touted by his record label as being "a post-World War II-era American narrative of 'cool cats', radios, UFO sightings, J. Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball".

Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends created an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano community that no longer exists.

The entire recording is a parable of the working class progressivism[26] of the first half of the American twentieth century, and even has a song featuring executed unionist Joe Hill.

Joaquim Cooder (Ry's son) provided percussion, and Juliette Commagere and Alex Lilly contributed backing vocals.

[30][31] Cooder's critically acclaimed[32][33] new album Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, released on August 30, 2011, contains politically charged songs such as "No Banker Left Behind"[34] which was inspired by a Robert Scheer column.

An American Songwriter article in 2012 suggested that Cooder's recent string of solo albums have often taken on an allegorical, sociopolitical bent.

Music journalist Evan Schlansky said that "Cooder's latest effort, Election Special (released August 21, 2012, on Nonesuch/Perro Verde) doesn't mince words.

On September 10, 2013, Cooder released Live in San Francisco, featuring the Corridos Famosos band, including Joachim Cooder on drums; Robert Francis on bass; vocalists Terry Evans, Arnold McCuller, and Juliette Commagere; Flaco Jiménez on accordion; and the Mexican brass band La Banda Juvenil.