March 7, 2007 - I highly recommend that any fan of Ry's check out the live CD of him, David Lindley, Joachim Cooder and Roseann Lindley. It's a breathtaking recording of two instrumental masters with their very talented offspring.

August 20, 2006 - Thank you for reminding me about the masterful Ry Cooder album, Boomer's Story. I bought the vinyl album in 1974 and last listened to it several years later. Your article helped me appreciate again the wonderful musicianship of the early Ry Cooder recordings. Now a newly bought CD of Boomer's Story, just listened to and thoroughly enjoyed, now sits alongside the other Ry Cooder CDs in my collection.

August 20, 2006 - Ry Cooder has been on my playlist since I first heard him in 1974. He is that rare breed of musician -- along with David Lindley, another under-appreciated gem, who he has recorded with -- that plays and records music capturing and transporting the listener to another place with voice and guitar. His recordings are windows into our cultural past, and have led me to investigate other artisits and styles more than anyone else's. I respect his tenacity and humility as much as anyone in the business of making music. He represents the best of what is possible in an industry awash in mediocrity. Keep on playin', Ry!

August 19, 2006 - Of all his recordings, I think Ry Cooder's Jazz is the most neglected. It was probably the most difficult music he ever attempted -- years later, he said he didn't play any of the tunes anymore because they were so hard. Difficulty aside, Jazz is a wonderful record, and my personal favorite of his.

August 19, 2006 - As a teenager, I hung out at McCabe's music store and the Ash Grove in West Hollywood. I signed up for guitar lessons and had a choice between the guy who played in "The Rising Sons" (Ry, not Taj Mahal) and some other guy. I got the other guy because of scheduling. Oh, woe.

I'm still playing, and still feel a strong affinity with my musical repertoire and Ry's. When I saw his first solo album (remember vinyl?), I bought it. I still listen to it and many more frequently. Ry turned me on to new styles and musicians: Blind Blake, Norteno and Flaco Jimenez, slack key and Gabby Pahinui, and much more.

On Boomer's Story, I've always loved the WWII song "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer," which I listened to and sang on many a '70s road trip. It's still in the rotation. I listen to Ry's treatments of songs and compare them with the originals. He respects his sources -- his additions are innovative and respectful at the same time.

August 19, 2006 - Ry is one of the few guitarists I can identify after a few notes. "Bop Til You Drop" is seminal, and the soundtrack of Southern Comfort is a masterpiece of the Cajun roots genre. His work with John Hiatt on "Bring the Family" will always be on my playlist. God bless anyone who loves Ry Cooder.

August 19, 2006 - I was introduced to Ry Cooder's music in the mid-'70s, and I have yet to find a replacement for him as a "favorite artist." He is both an American treasure and an iconoclast. (Name another American musician who has never had a Top 40 hit despite so many releases, but never has his albums relegated to the discount bin.)

I cannot pick a favorite album of his, but the one I first wore the grooves, then the laser track, out of was Jazz. A lot has rightly been made of Cooder's slide guitar, but one cannot have a true appreciation of his range and depth until one hears his medley of Jelly Roll Morton's "The Pearls/Tia Juana."

August 18, 2006 - I've been a big fan of Ry Cooder's records for years, especially "Chicken Skin Music" and "Bop Til You Drop." Unfortunately, I have only had the pleasure of seeing him play live once, in L.A., when he was playing guitar in Flaco Jimenez's band. It seemed like every musician in town was there to see the master. The most telling observation I heard was, "If music was an Olympic Sport, Ry Cooder would be the American team!"

August 18, 2006 - I saw a Ry Cooder concert. I will never forget the view of him on that wonderful stage at the Guthrie. You'd think that using that proscenium stage for anything but great plays was incorrect, but that wasn't true. I had no idea that Cooder was there to teach us and learn about music. It was a wonderful evening.

August 18, 2006 - I have been a fan of Ry Cooder from the original Ry Cooder album, and have always enjoyed his connection to the music of historical periods/events. On Into the Purple Valley, for example, the calypso tune "FDR in Trinidad" is a gem. But the Cooder album I think has "gone missing" is Jazz, which revives or reinvigorates some old jazz songs. I don't think that album got the attention it deserved.

August 18, 2006 - Ry Cooder has been the pied piper of American roots music. I have been buying his albums since his first was released. I even had a chance to see him on a college tour in the '60s. I must confess that I'm more apt to listen to some of his inspirations -- Joseph Spence, Gary Davis, Pink Anderson -- than I am to his own music these days.

August 17, 2006 - Honestly, anytime I've ever told people I knew about Ry, they had no idea what I was talking about! Okay, one time -- the guy said he thought he was funny. My brother got me started listening to Ry when I was about 18 -- more than 20 years ago. We talk about the ONE TIME we heard him on the radio: a local college station played "Girls From Texas," and we both just looked at each other and smiled. I dont know whether I ever heard him on the radio again, but we felt like we were in on something that no one else knew about. In my opinion, anything before Buena Vista Social Club is virtually unknown, and it's a crime. There's no way I could pick my favorite Ry Cooder song. I think I would have to choose three: "Teardrops Will Fall," "Trouble You Can't Fool Me," and "Crazy 'Bout an Automobile." The man is an artistic treasure, and I would buy anything he put out. As a matter of fact, I think I HAVE.

August 17, 2006 - Another excellent early Cooder LP was Into the Purple Valley. I believe it was his third album. It is a collection of Depression-era songs, my favorite of which is "How Can You Keep on Moving (Unless You Migrate, Too)." Thanks for this story about the past work of a great musician.

August 17, 2006 - I am an old-time square-dance fiddler. Back when people argued about it, I was very much a purist. "The old ways are the good ways." I still feel that way, and I'm often horrified at what some musicians think is "originality" and "progress."

Ry Cooder has always cut right across that attitude. I remember listening to Boomer's Story and Into the Valley when they were new and loving them. Cooder takes a deep mastery and understanding of traditional music and builds something musically valid on that foundation.

August 17, 2006 - Ry Cooder's recording of "Memo From Turner" with Mick Jagger in the movie Performance is as good as it gets, and is rarely played. Let us also not forget that the Rolling Stones apparently stole countless slide licks from Cooder, after inviting him to England, on the historic Beggars Banquet album. You can hear the influence, if not the man.

August 17, 2006 - I first heard Ry Cooder's recordings in the early '70s in New Orleans, and knew immediately that his was a remarkable talent. Later, I went to his concerts at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, and another at the Atlanta Symphony Hall. He didn't need smoke and mirrors or ridiculous lighting effects to please an audience. He needed only music. He sat alone in the middle of the stage with a guitar, a mandolin, his voice and his creativity.

I became a professional classical musician in the latter part of that decade, conducting orchestras, music theater and comic opera, but I never lost my love and respect for Cooder's musicianship. He expresses our American musical heritage as beautifully as W.A. Mozart did in his own day, in his own culture.

August 17, 2006 - Still in heavy rotation for me, as well. Got to see Ry play in a rare NYC visit at the now-defunct Bottom Line in the late '70s or early '80s -- he broke a mandolin string during "Billy the Kid," and I cringed, but he soldiered on. An American classic, and Ry's a national treasure.

August 17, 2006 - I love, and have loved for decades, Ry Cooder -- thank you for this feature. I am not a fan of music video per se, but I would suggest that anyone among your listeners would enjoy seeing Ry's cover of Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm," probably my favorite music video.

August 16, 2006 - Not neglected by me -- it is still on my playlist!

August 16, 2006 - I had forgotten how the album Boomer's Story used to play sweetly in the background while I sat around with my friends in the early '70s... It wasn't my LP, and it went away, as well as my memory of the songs -- until today. Thank you, NPR and Ry. I am buying the CD tonight.

August 16, 2006 - I've always been particulary impressed with the soundtrack albums Ry Cooder has played on -- notably, the soundtracks to Performance and Paris, Texas. Beautiful slide guitar!

August 16, 2006 - Ry Cooder's musical legacy includes the talent of his son Joaquim Cooder, who collaborated with his father on Buena Vista Social Club. Joaquim first came to my attention as a teenager: He was one of a talented group of young people who performed in a benefit production of Steven Sondheim's Into the Woods for the non-profit organization (Bread and Roses) where I worked. His talent is, in part, a tribute to his father.

August 16, 2006 - I've been hoping and praying for high-definition reissues of Cooder's early work, with extras. I love his version of "Hell Have To Go." Maybe Rhino Handmade will come through!

August 16, 2006 - Ry Cooder's work will be remembered for his interesting choice of musical projects. From Buena Vista Social Club to "A Meeting At The River," Cooder makes the most of his projects, with pure flawless slide guitar and guest musicians of incredable talent. I can't wait for his next project to come out.

August 16, 2006 - Ry Cooder keeps cropping up. It's like we grew up together. He first came into my consciousness when he was playing blues with Taj Mahal in the 1960s. I had never heard anything like it. To this day, I cannot hear the intro to "Dust My Broom" from the 1965 album without being transported to another place and time. But it was the mandolin work on "Diving Duck Blues" that let me understand, for the first time, that my white southern string-band heritage was not separable from African-American culture. That there was more in me that was like all others than was different. This haunting, transcendent search for justice -- really heard in "Rally 'Round the Flag" -- is what can be so easily overlooked by some, dismissed by others, and, thank God, what has kept Ry Cooder out of the commercial limelight for decades.

August 16, 2006 - I bought Ry Cooder's first album because I thought the picture of him leaning on the Airstream trailer was cool. His knack for selecting songs that portray specific time periods and playing them so well has been fun to follow over the years. More recently, Chavez Ravine is a gem, telling a story that needs to be remembered.