
The Ry Cooder Story
Frank Schnelle
“The Ry Cooder Story“ delves deep into the legendary career of master guitarist Ry Cooder. Prepare to embark on a journey spanning 60 years of musical genius. From his humble beginnings as a session musician with the likes of The Rolling Stones or Randy Newman, to his rise as a solo artist (“Bop Till You Drop“), film composer (“Paris, Texas“), or world musician (Buena Vista Social Club), Ry Cooder's contributions to the world of music are unparalleled. Each episode provides comprehensive insights into Cooder’s creative process, collaborations, and profound influence on countless artists.
This podcast uses a new production method. Thanks to a text-to-speech generator, all voices are spoken by an AI. But don't worry: it sounds like good radio, with pleasant sound, changing voices, and - most importantly - decent English.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Top 10 The Ry Cooder Story Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Ry Cooder Story episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Ry Cooder Story for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Ry Cooder Story episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

39 Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011)
The Ry Cooder Story
04/24/25 • 50 min
In response to the Bush presidency, Cooder produced what could be described as the modern-day equivalent of the kind of dustbowl ballads Woody Guthrie once sang. On Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, he took aim at politicians, corporate greed and military action – all issues close to Guthrie's heart in the 1930s and '40s.– In this episode we also talk about Cooder's first and only book, and a few other things.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Voices produced with text-to-speech AI
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

23 Bring the Family (1987)
The Ry Cooder Story
06/06/24 • 34 min
Cooder was not involved in the original development of John Hiatt's Bring The Family, nor did he act as producer, as he did a year later with Bobby King and Terry Evans. Nevertheless, this album is more significant than most of his previous session work and became something of a blueprint for the next phase of his career after Get Rhythm from the same year. It would be a period in which solo albums would no longer play a role, and film scores would gradually become less influential. Instead, a phase of more personal collaborations began, marked by work with long-time friends and ever new excursions into the realm of world music. Bring The Family was also the starting signal for the band Little Village, which was to be formed five years later.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Additional background music The Mini Vandals
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

15 The Border (1982)
The Ry Cooder Story
02/15/24 • 34 min
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 Drummond on bass. He also included contributions from Freddy Fender and Sam Samudio, better known as Sam the Sham. The much-recorded title theme, Across The Borderline, sensitively depicts the paradoxical emotional world and the absurd situation of the refugees.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

13 Borderline (1980)
The Ry Cooder Story
01/18/24 • 43 min
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 of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Additional background music The Mini Vandals
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trailer
The Ry Cooder Story
06/06/23 • 4 min
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.

02 Rising Sons
The Ry Cooder Story
07/13/23 • 37 min
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 and sensibilities that ultimately didn't mesh. Nevertheless, the Rising Sons became the stuff of legend.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Additional background music by Purple Planet Music, The Mini Vandals
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Rising Sons live recordings at https://www.wolfgangs.com
Rising Sons history at http://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/the-rising-sons.html
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

25 Johnny Handsome (1989)
The Ry Cooder Story
09/26/24 • 54 min
We're back for our third season! Episode 25 focuses on 1989's Johnny Handsome, another underrated but truly spectacular Walter Hill film. Cooder's score is one of his best, if not THE best. It's surprising, moving, and has a great interplay between slide guitar, keyboards, and horn section. We also take a look at several other productions, including Pecos Bill, Tales From The Crypt, The Ghost Of Faffner Hall, several session albums, and the great Bobby King and Terry Evans debut, Live And Let Live!, which is as close to a Cooder album as you can get without actually being a Cooder album.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Additional background music The Mini Vandals
Voices produced with text-to-speech AI
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

41 Live in San Francisco (2013)
The Ry Cooder Story
05/22/25 • 48 min
Hard as it is to believe, 2013's Live At The Great American Music Hall was only Cooder's second official full-length live album. As with 1977's Show Time, he had no intention of putting the emphasis on a new album, but instead performed a great mix of his live classics. His band consisted almost entirely of old friends like Flaco Jiménez and Terry Evans, and family members like son Joachim, Juliette Commagere, and Robert Francis. In this episode, we introduce them – and a few others – and the albums they made with Cooder in the years that followed.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Voices produced with text-to-speech AI
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

28 Geronimo – An American Legend (1993)
The Ry Cooder Story
11/07/24 • 32 min
Geronimo – An American Legend, released in 1993, was Cooder's eighth score for director Walter Hill. The movie is about the last resistance of the Native Americans against the superiority of white civilization. It's very serious and pretty dark. After the jazzy Trespass, this was something completely new for Cooder. For the first time, he composed something like a classical film score, a real tapestry of sound. And while the movie opts for the narrative perspective of the white soldiers, Cooder chooses a strict musical duality between a Native American and a white Western part.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Additional background music The Mini Vandals
Voices produced with text-to-speech AI
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

42 The Prodigal Son (2018)
The Ry Cooder Story
06/05/25 • 62 min
In 2015, Cooder went on tour with bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White of the renowned country band The Whites. The tour featured a lot of gospel music and directly inspired Cooder's presumably final solo album, The Prodigal Son. It's a great and fitting farewell, and there is much to say about it, as well as the subsequent North American and European tours.
This podcast frequently uses small snippets of musical recordings in podcast episodes for educational, review, and commentary purposes. In all cases, without exception, we believe this is protected by fair use in the U.S., fair dealing in the U.K. and EEA, and similar exceptions in the copyright laws of other nations. No more of the original than necessary is used, and excerpts are edited into long-form narratives, making the use transformative in nature.
Written, produced and edited by Frank Schnelle
Theme and background music by Chris Haugen
Voices produced with text-to-speech AI
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube
Ry Cooder making The Prodigal Son on YouTube
Ry Cooder - Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right (Live in studio) on YouTube
Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son (Live in studio) on YouTube
Support us on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Ry Cooder Story have?
The Ry Cooder Story currently has 47 episodes available.
What topics does The Ry Cooder Story cover?
The podcast is about Music, Podcasts, Blues, Movies and Tv & Film.
What is the most popular episode on The Ry Cooder Story?
The episode title '23 Bring the Family (1987)' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Ry Cooder Story?
The average episode length on The Ry Cooder Story is 41 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Ry Cooder Story released?
Episodes of The Ry Cooder Story are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of The Ry Cooder Story?
The first episode of The Ry Cooder Story was released on Jun 6, 2023.
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