Artists Who Changed Music: Ry Cooder

in his heyday raikuda was by far the best slide guitarist in the world normally such a statement would invite controversy but for three decades from the late 60s to the late 90s kuda really was head and shoulders above every other slide guitarist in the world when cuda was listed in 2003 at number eight on the rolling stones list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time above jimmy page keith richards and jeff beck nobody argued cuda is a master of both the acoustic and the electric guitar and countless other stringed instruments he has integrated many rock elements into his blues and folk based playing in his rhythm playing is distinctive as his soloing cuda possesses immaculate feel timing and pitch a wonderful sense of melody and an amazing capacity to play the right notes at the right time notes that sound entirely natural and original and that serve to enhance the music the guitarist plays with his fingers and is also a master of the finger style guitar whether he plays with or without a slide when playing slide he alternates between playing with a bottleneck and fretting his left hand fingers giving him a huge variety of options someone wrote perceptively his bending and blending of notes can make the instrument sound like it's talking or crying or laughing [Music] [Applause] cooler has a truly unique instantly recognizable sound and throughout his career his guitar skills have been in huge demand he was the guest performer on recordings by countless top artists including the rolling stones van morrison stevei eric clapton and many others cuda also wrote the soundtracks for 17 movies some of which became legendary he made pioneering and influential albums with musicians from india africa cuba hawaii and ireland most of all he created a stunning ovra of 17 highly regarded solo albums that taken together can match that of any great a-list artist for all these reasons cuda is sometimes simply called an american genius he has been recognized with six grammy awards honorary doctorates from queen's university in canada and the california institute of arts and a bbc lifetime achievement award cuda is 74 and has in recent years scaled down his activities his also for most of the century stepped back from his guitar hero role focusing more on playing accompanying parts on albums he has released but his playing continues to have an enormous influence on guitarists all over the world while his solo albums remain treasure troves of outstanding music it is why we are taking a closer look at the man and his career in this video ryland peter cuda was born on march the 15th 1947 in santa monica los angeles his father bill kuder was a liberal lawyer and a folk singer and his mother emma cassaroli was of an italian descent an accident when he was only three years old shaped much of cuda's life he accidentally struck a knife in his left eye while trying to fix a toy car and spent a year in dark rooms and hospitals his eye could not be saved and he ended up with a glass eye one night after the accident while he was lying in his bed with the room darkened a family friend entered and laid something on the boy's stomach when the boy asked what it was the friend replied it's a guitar playing the guitar became one of his main ways for the one-eyed young boy of expressing himself the young kuda practiced incessantly initially playing the four-string guitar given to him and then a martin guitar his father bought for him when he noticed his son's aptitude he hated school and playing guitar offered yet another refuge cuda became so good so quickly that his father reportedly quit playing guitar when his son was only five because junior was already out playing him in his teenage years kuda spent a lot of time in the guitar shop on pico boulevard in santa monica called mccabe's and at the ash grove a local folk club he would sit in the front row closely watching the performers who included john farhi lightning hopkins tom paley doc watson sleepy john estes and reverend gary davis in part inspired by his folk singer dad the young cuda practiced woody guthrie and pete seeger songs and he started playing the blues picking up slide and finger-picking techniques from recordings by legendary players like elmore james josh white sun house blind willie johnson lightning hopkins robert johnson and many others amazingly a few years ago a recording surfaced from 1963 of a 16 year old kuda accompanying singer jackie deshannon during a concert at the ash grove playing traditional folk and blues songs it's the first known recording featuring cuda and his feel is already recognizable even at this early stage [Music] around this time cuda also performed as part of a blue grass trio with bill munro and doc watson it extended the instruments he played to banjo and led cuda to add banjo tunings and the three finger role to his guitar techniques by 1965 at the age of 17 kuda had become a much sought-after local guitarist in that year he formed a group called rising suns with fellow guitarists tal shimahal and jessie lee kincaid bassist gary marker and drummer ed cassidy they signed to columbia records and recorded one album produced by terry melcher it was not released until 1992 and called rising songs featuring taj mahal and raikuda clearly piggybacking on the fame mahal and kuda by this time enjoyed in 1967 don van vliet leader of captain beef art and his magic band asked kuda to step in because the band's guitarist had suffered a nervous breakdown cuda featured on the band's debut album safe as milk in 1967. one notable contribution being his arrangement of the tune grown so ugly however at one point the band's original guitarist turned up with a loaded crossbow and cuda feared for his life after more erratic behavior this time from van vliet himself just before the band was scheduled to perform at the monterey pop festival in june 1967 cuda quit the band by this stage kuda was receiving regular calls to play as a session musician he was still supposed to attend high school and was at one point called in to justify his absences when he explained that he had made five thousand dollars per week for some sessions the response was kurt and to the point then what are you still doing here as part of his session career cuda played on recordings by neil young the monkeys and the rolling stones he played mandolin on the stone's cover of robert johnson's tune love in vain which appeared on let it bleed in 1969. apparently he showed keith richards the open g tuning which the stone's guitarist went on to use for much of his career kudo is also rumored to be the originator of the rift for the single honky tonk woman although he's never been credited there were more guest performances on albums by randy newman 12 songs gordon lightfoot littlefeet's debut album judy collins arlo guthrie the everly brothers stories we could tell and so on kudo again worked with the stones on sticky fingers in 1971 playing slide guitar on sister morphe and in 1969 he took part in a studio jam with mick jagger charlie watts bill wyman and pianist nikki hopkins produced by glenn johns it was released in 1972 as the album jamming with edward by 1970 being a session musician stopped being kuda's main focus producer lenny warrenka judged that kuda could be a successful solo artist and he signed a warner's reprise label his first album produced by wanaka and van dyke parks is simply called raikuda and was released by the end of the year the album is in many ways a blueprint for many of kuda's solo career it contains mostly older blues folk rock and roll and pop songs by the likes of woody guthrie blind blake and blind willie johnson played by an eclectic collection of session musicians including pianist van dyke parks bassist chris etheridge and drummers milt holland and richie hayward keeping the disparate elements on the album together were kuda's inimitable guitar playing and his voice which was not attractive by traditional standards but suited the music and most of all was full of swagger and attitude cuda had unearthed several forgotten gems from the past just like he would do for most of his solo career one example is how can a poor man stand such times and live by alfred reed first recorded in 1929. it has since cuda's discovery been covered by the likes of bruce springsteen ub40 joe bonamassa and the song was added to the grammy hall of fame in 2020. [Music] second album a masterpiece into the purple valley released in 1972 was built on similar principles the focus this time was on protest songs from the 1930s dust bowl era set in unusual arrangements based on blues calypso folk gospel rock and country it features a song by bahamian guitarist joseph spence who had become a major influence on cuda the album was called a tour de force and his playing phenomenal it was regarded as his commercial breakthrough even if sales continued to be relatively low cuda's third solo album boomer's story was called an archaeological dig through american folk and blues music and saw him work for the first time with drummer jim keltner who became one of america's top session drummers and continued playing with cuda for decades the album's standout track is the dark end of the street a soul song from 1967 written by dan penn and chip's moment it became a staple of cuda's live performances [Music] paradise and lunch in 1974 was next it combines forgotten songs from the past with contemporary material by bobby womack and bert bacharach it also features horn and string arrangements and for the first time extensive backing vocals which became a defining feature of kuda's solo music cuda showed a penchant for picking songs with amusing lyrics and titles like married man's a fool if wolves could talk and ditty way ditty the album also contains the traditional jesus on the main line which also became part of kuda's regular live repertoire [Music] chicken skin music released in 1976 saw kuda blend tex-mex and hawaiian music with latin blues folk jazz and gospel it marks the first time he played with recordings flacco himanus cuda himself played bajo sexto mandola bottleneck guitar french accordion electric guitar slack key guitar tipple and hawaiian guitar his solo cover of bourgeois blues a lead belly protest song from 1937 about discrimination and segregation is an album highlight [Music] i don't wanna be mistreated showtime in 1977 was kuda's first live album recorded at the great american music hall in san francisco at the end of 1976 with a live band that featured flacca jimenez and regular backing vocalists bobby king and terry evans cuda's acoustic guitar playing on jesus on the main line is amazing as is his solo on the dark end of the street which is sung by his backing vocalist kuda's playing on the entire album is spectacular with not only outstanding slide solos but also stunning rhythm playing that sets the entire band alight [Music] jazz released in 1978 is arguably kuda's most ambitious and strangest album as he set out to recreate jazz music from the early 20th century with dixieland ragtime vaudeville and tim pan alley elements kudu even uses a big band on some tracks the album features music by jelly roll morton bix by debeck and joseph spence and one of the highlights is nobody a song from 1905 with a wonderful threated guitar seller cuda plays masterful acoustic guitar throughout the arguably flawed but very enjoyable album [Music] i ain't never done nothing to nobody by this stage some storm clouds were gathering over cuda's career jazz was received with reservations by critics because they felt cuda had followed old arrangements too closely cuda himself in a 1983 interview called the album a stupid pompous horrible thing a wretched mistake in retrospect that seems a bit harsh although kuru's work before jazz had been highly and universally acclaimed and he was at the peak of his powers as a guitarist singer and producer his record still did not settle particularly well there was also his 1976 tour which had resulted in showtime but ended in catastrophe cuda recalled in an interview from 1981 that band members relatives were dying musicians were falling ill and he added we had a bus we couldn't pay for so we lost it and we had to drive cars which would break down in the snow i was sick for two years after that exhausted debilitated demoralized i believed in it and i thought it was going to happen it was so great who could not like it but it turned out that very few people did like it those were dark days a change of direction was needed and this arrived with this next album bop till you drop released in 1979 it's an almost entirely electric affair with rhythm and blues soul and rock and roll songs from the 50s and the 60s it sounded more current and suitable for mass consumption with covers of songs made famous by the likes of elvis presley and icantina turner the album also was the first ever major label release recorded to digital a 3m multi-track machine at warner brothers recording studios in north hollywood legendary engineer lee hershberg was behind the controls he had worked with kudo on several albums and suggested that the at the time groundbreaking move to all digital in an interview in billboards soon after the album's release cuda said no one knew what would happen but the difference was incredible over the big studio speakers and once we heard it there was no question it's very dramatic especially on drums because of the peaks lows and highs for guitars you get this real finger chord skin sounds on vocals you can really hear the edge i'll never go back to 24 analog again cuda also mentioned that the tape recorder occasionally ate an entire drum part in an early indication of some early digital pitfalls perhaps he was slightly blinded by the novelty of digital because he did record to analogue again and over the years the album has received criticism for sounding sterile and lifeless however today the album still sounds fresh and clear and far better than many digital records made soon afterwards despite of or perhaps because of cuda trying to be more accessible bob tilly drop contains some of his greatest work from his cover of presley's little sister to the gorgeous lilting guitars in the instrumental i think it's going to work out fine most outstanding is another prize winner in the great titles category the very thing that makes you rich will make me poor which apparently was written by an unknown memphis taxi driver who cuda had met by accident it became one of the defining songs of cuda's solo career but you drop indeed turned out to be more commercially successful and little sister was a minor hit cuda redid the entire exercise with his next album borderline in 1980 which again mined 1950s and 60s rhythm and blues and rock and roll territory with some reggae and tex-mex influences thrown in borderline also saw him work with guitarist and singer john hyatt for the first time however the 3m digital sound on boardline was tinny and the choice of songs was not as inspired the album nevertheless contained another cuda live classic and great title contender crazy about an automobile every woman i know as well as the wonderful why don't you try me tonight [Music] in an interview in 1981 cuda commented on what could be called the pop phase of his career promoters don't book you because they like you they do it because there's good business to be done bop till you drop pulled me out of a weird hull it's crazy to make records nobody buys it's just a waste of time once you make a decision to cut a record you figure that there's a public gesture and you want to get the record out there with bop i finally did that it sold about 300 000 copies which is six times what the rest of them have ever sold it was just in the nick of time too warner brothers had a big blackboard and an eraser and a lot of names were suddenly disappearing cuda was at the top of his game in many respects and by now enjoyed worldwide guitar legend status in an interview around this time he explained that he possessed 50 guitars some of the main acoustic guitars he uses are a gibson roy smeck from the 1930s and 1950s martin triplo 18 a gibson sj 200 attack amini j 15e a k craft a kona hawaiian guitar a vos flat top cutaway that has been turned into a mando guitar and a 1930s gibson master tone banjo kuda's electrics in those years included a 1967 daphne blue fender stratocaster tuned in open d and nicknamed cudacaster it was sold in 2020 with an asking price of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars he also plays a 1960 strat tuned in g a grech six one two zero a 1960s gaia tone lg 200t a 1949 gibson es9 a ripley stereo guitar and a k semi-acoustic from the same year cuda uses amps by fender standell dumble highwat and others he plays with a variety of open guitar tunings and has gone on record stating it does not like the sound of new strings and so he tries to change the strings as rarely as he can in the early 1980s things were seemingly going well with cuda's career but inwindly he was struggling with the role of front man and guitar hero and the pressures of commercial success he was wildly popular in several european countries for example selling out the hammerstein's odeon in london eight nights in a row and i went and it was amazing but when he returned to the us he was barely able to make a living cuda recorded two more solo albums as a leader during the 1980s the slide area in 1982 which he tried his hand at writing more of the songs with uneven results and get rhythm in 1987 on which he had a heavily distorted electric guitar sound the latter album contains three of his best ever recordings his amazing version of johnny cash's get rhythm his equally impressive and very funny all acoustic cover of chuck berry's 13 question method and the masterful across the borderline which he co-wrote with jon hyatt and jim dickinson the latter song contains one of the most soaring and evocative slide guitar solos [Music] but as time went on the pressures of his artist frontman guitar hero role and the difficulties of making a living from it became too much cuda would not release a solo album for 18 years for unknown reasons he even refused to give permission for the release of an astonishingly good registration of a concert in santa cruz in 1987 by filmmaker les blanc called rykuda and the moola bander rhythm aces let's have a ball it was broadcast abroad on tv a few times and the audio on fm radio but it has since only been available as a bootleg years later cuda explained i gave up on pop music as far as the commercial entity as far as pop music goes i quit i absolutely threw in the towel i couldn't handle it i couldn't do it i couldn't be what they need you to be the record thing drove me insane i couldn't figure it out i finally had to stop making these darn solo records because they just didn't happen something was missing and commercially it was useless anyway pretty much non-viable for most of the 80s 90s and 2000s kudos career would therefore consist of a zigzag course in which he tried his hand at anything but being the front man and guitar hero part of his focus was on creating soundtracks for movies which he said made him far more money his soundtrack career had started in 1970 with three tracks for the movie performance which starred mick jagger his next ventures were soundtracks for four movies by director walter hill the long riders in 1980 southern comfort in 1981 the border in 1982 and streets of fire in 1984 his soundtrack for the long riders is regarded as a masterpiece that can be listened to by itself and stands up to his best solo work in 1985 cuda finally achieved household name fame with his haunting score for vin vendors road movie paris texas as the main characters travel through the american southwest with the movie following them at a very slow pace kuda's sparse ambient acoustic slide playing evokes the grandeur and stillness of the epic landscapes on the screen the film and the soundtrack were huge critical and commercial successes so it's a journey in in this guy's mind and and the story develops from that and that's what needs accompaniment and especially because he doesn't talk so you figure well if he doesn't talk does he hear anything and if he were to convert that into sound or melody this is what it is you take the little theme and each time it's a little more or it's a little different and it and the slightest little nuance is going to push it this way or that way and harry dean's all on his face he's not using his voice for the first half so you don't have that to consider the audience has to somehow go with his pace and and and other things other than direct information like speak cuda's most striking next movie project was his score for water hills crossroads in 1986 with the title and significant elements of the movie inspired by the story of robert johnson cuda played all parts performed by the movie's main character ralph marchio most famously in the guitar duel with steve ai only marchio's super fast bark inspired arpeggios toward the very end were performed by vi [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] kudo never was a guitar player who went for virtuosity or great speed over the next years kuda wrote the soundtrack to another eight movies most notably water hills geronimo and american legend in 1993 and vim vendors the end of violence in 1997. there's also a guest performances on albums by van morrison into the music in 1979 eric clapton money and cigarettes in 1983 john hyatt bring the family in 1987 masterpiece john lee hooker mr lucky 1991 another great one aaron neville warm your heart in 91 and many many more 1988 brought kuta his first grammy award ironically not for his stellar solo career but in the best recording for children category for his music accompanying the storybook classic pekka's bill narrated by robin williams cuda did briefly try to resurrect his guitar slinger career with the supergroup little village in 1992 together with john hyatt bassist nick lowe and jim keltner however their self-titled debut album was not well received and the project folded for the most part cuda's 90s were taken up with three major collaborative projects with each more influential and high profile than the former the first was a meeting by the river released in 1993 which features kuda on acoustic guitar and vishwa mohan bart playing a mohan veena which is an arch top hawaiian guitar modified for use in indian music with 20 strings in four instrumental tracks they are accompanied by sukhvinda singh naamdhari on tabla and kuda's son joachim on dumbbell the music is more or less a jam which took place in christ the king chapel saint anthony's seminary in santa barbara it was recorded by kavi chandran alexander waterlily acoustics label owner with all analog equipment a lot of it designed and made by tim paris vertini of esoteric audio research the album struck a chord and was exceptionally well received it earned cuda and bart grammy awards for best world music album and is still regarded as a world music classic a year later kuda collaborated with legendary malayan guitarist ali farka torre on talking timbuk2 other musicians included clarence gate mouth brown on electric guitar and viola john patatucci on bass and again jim keltner on drums in addition to his usual acoustic and electric guitars cuda plays an array of instruments including electric mando guitar a large h-string mandolin an acoustic toy guitar marimba mandolin kumbas a moroccan banjo and tambora an indian sitar-like instrument talking timbuktu is full of rolling rhythms and intricate guitar work informed by american folk and blues and torres malayan music cuda remarks the africans don't have the melancholy blues not even in their bluesier bits ali's blues is different in field and american blues but it's still got that expressive mode between major and minor that comes from the blues the stuff we call blues has been around for a long time talking timbuktu was also a critical and commercial success and again earned kuda a grammy for best world music album kudo also collaborated extensively with fellow guitarist david lindley and in 1995 with the chieftains on their album the long black veil but his most attention-grabbing and earth-moving project was buena vista social club which put cuban music on the world map the album was a result of a chance encounter with mostly elderly musicians when cuda visited cuba in 1997 breaking the u.s trade and travel embargo the recordings took place over six days at havana's eg rem studios which still looked exactly as it had done in the 1950s buena vista social club in 1997 contained traditional cuban music mostly in the trova and in genres enhanced with the sympathetic modern production by cuda who also played guitar it became a major hit selling over 8 million copies worldwide and received countless accolades including the 1998 grammy award for best traditional tropical latin album the musicians involved including kuda went on a short world tour in 1998 which was immortalized by vin vanders in a movie that is also called buena vista social club [Music] cuda's collaborations after these three major successes were far lower in profile among them were hollow bamboo in 2000 with trumpeter john hassell and flautist ronald maddunda and mambu sinuendo 2003 with cuba guitarist manuel gulban which later earned him yet another a grammy award for best pop instrumental album kudo also produced several records for cuban singer ibrahim farah who had found fame through buena vista social club one of them buenos chamanos in 2003 earned kuda his sixth grammy for best traditional tropical latin album finally in 2005 cuda took the solo album plunge again with chavez ravine it was a concept album about a mexican-american los angeles neighborhood that was destroyed after shady deals with developers musically it harks back to his earlier solo albums with a mixture of mexican cuban latin and traditional american influences three things are different though there are several featured singers and when he does sing cuda uses a different gentler voice without his earlier swagger there's also hardly any guitar solos chavez ravine was well received and cuda released another four solo albums my name is buddy 2007 i flathead 2008 pull up some dust and sit down 2011 and election special in 2012. these four albums cover social political topics with most or all tracks written by kuda and the music is mostly in a faux folk style the albums again were critically acclaimed but less commercially successful perhaps the absence of significant guitar sellers diminished their appeal with fans kuda has worked closely with his drummer some joachim since the 1980s and they have been stories that joachim encouraged his father to resurrect his classic music from his 70s and 80s solo records and play solos again whether or not it was due to joking or not cuda fans were happily surprised by the great man going on tour again playing some of his older music this was documented on a live album credited to raikuda and corridos formosus called live at the great american musical san francisco august the 31st to september the 1st 2011. in the same setting as kuda's 1977 showtime album and with two musicians who were present at the time accordionist flacco jimenez and vocalist terry evans cuda revives the good old days with spirited renditions of old favorites like crazy bout an automobile every woman i know why don't you try me and the dark end of the street kuda junior did play a part in convincing his father to make another studio album again more along the same lines as his 70s and 80s solo albums the result was kuda's most recent solo album the prodigal son which again contains blues country and fortunes from the earlier part of the 20th century and contains more featured guitar playing than cuda's other 21st century solo albums whether kudo's career has come full circle or whether he has more pioneering projects in him remains to be seen but with 17 solo albums more than 20 collaborative albums 17 soundtrack albums and countless guest performances on record there is an extraordinary amount of music to explore for any of you who are not familiar with his work all i can say is i've seen raikouda life and it is a spiritual experience i was blessed growing up in a house of um classical music jazz and some blues that i did know a lot of the blues artists that raikuda was inspired by but when i discovered raikuda and it was into the purple valley and bop till you drop with like the two big ones for me when i discovered those albums i was able to go back and find out even more and the great thing about raikuda is he doesn't just introduce you i mean obviously on bob tilly drop you've got little sister the big elvis presses you've got some of the more mainstream stuff but if you go through rikuta's catalogue i mean to say that he was a taste maker or it would be an understatement he as you heard me talk about he took songs from the turn of the last century and brought them into the mainstream and then they ended up being covered by huge rock bands like ub40 or big stars like bruce springsteen and now joe bonamassa this is a big deal rykuda i mean he's a national treasure for the americans watching this i mean he is so important to modern music i feel like he at times kept that kind of guitar playing alive in america it was so unfortunate in the 80s everything was all shredfest and that's fine don't get me wrong but anything that raikuda played on was just a breath of fresh air because he's not about virtuosity and shredding is about feel and emotion and melody and just one of the most beautiful guitar players that ever live and i love the fact that he makes top tens in greatest guitar players all the time by all over the place because people realize just how important he is but i think beyond his incredible guitar playing songwriting singing production all of that stuff is the fact that he's the gateway to so many great musicians kids today can discover raikuda and then look and be like who are all these players who are these covers of who are these artists and then just open up an incredible world of music of american music for over a hundred years raikuda thank you so much for doing that i got almost teary-eyed talking about this such an important musician such an important guitar player and it is fantastic without raikuda many many many people would never discover some of the greatest music ever made thanks ever so much for watching please give us any comments and questions below i would love to know other artists you'd love for us to talk about thank you ever so much paul tingan for working on this because i know paul is a huge raikuda fan so when he brought up doing raikuda to me i was like let's do it there is probably very very few guitar players that you can speak so lyrically about and oh god paris texas go put on the album paris texas now i remember buying it when it came out i get teary-eyed just remembering all my hairs are standing on end look at that was that being coming up in the light just thinking about that album go and listen to paris texas i implore you now thanks so long for well have we just done or voila goodbye

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 343,406

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio

Id: 1TNf0owfMtE

Length: 40min 26sec (2426 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 05 2022