Ry Cooder Quotes

No second chances in the land of a thousand dances, the valley of ten million insanities.

Usually that banjo tuning was used, on the guitar, for slide playing or bottleneck. An “open tuning” simply means the guitar is pretuned to a ready-made major chord—but there are different kinds and configurations. I’d been working on open D and open E. I learned then that Don Everly, one of the finest rhythm players, used open tuning on “Wake Up Little Susie” and “Bye Bye Love.” He just used the barre chord, the finger across the neck. Ry Cooder was the first cat I actually saw play the open G chord—I have to say I tip my hat to Ry Cooder.

Around now we started to gather musicians to play on tracks, the so-called supersidemen, some of whom are still around. Nicky Hopkins had been there almost since the beginning; Ry Cooder had come and almost gone. On Sticky Fingers we linked up again with Bobby Keys, the great Texan saxophone player, and his partner Jim Price.