[www.newyorker.com]


Stones content is shallow, but worth arguing about. The 5 string tuning didn't belong to Ry Cooder. its a banjo tuning fer chrissakes

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duke richardson
[www.newyorker.com]


Stones content is shallow, but worth arguing about. The 5 string tuning didn't belong to Ry Cooder. its a banjo tuning fer chrissakes

Correct, Ry Cooder did not invent the tuning, but he sure took it to the next level! Thanks for the heads up. Go Ry Go!

Thanks for the link Duke. Where in the article does it imply that the 5 string G tuning belonged to Ry? I didn't see it.

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Stones62
Thanks for the link Duke. Where in the article does it imply that the 5 string G tuning belonged to Ry? I didn't see it.

it sure reads like they stole something from Ry Cooder doesn't it:


one version of it anyway—the most widely known example I can think of comes from the period when Cooder had been hired to augment the Rolling Stones during the recording of “Let It Bleed.” He was playing by himself in the studio, goofing around with some changes, when Mick Jagger danced over and said, How do you do that? You tune the E string down to D, place your fingers there, and pull them off quickly, that’s very good. Keith, perhaps you should see this. And before long, the Rolling Stones were collecting royalties for “Honky Tonk Women,” which sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song and absolutely nothing like any other song ever produced by the Rolling Stones in more than forty years. According to Richards in his recent autobiography, Cooder showed him the open G tuning which became his mainstay and accounts for the full-bodied chordal declarations that characterize songs such as “Gimme Shelter,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Start Me Up,” and “Brown Sugar.” The most succinct way I can think of to describe the latticed style that Keith Richards says he has sought to achieve with Ron Wood is to say that for thirty-five years the Stones have been trying to do with four hands what Cooder can do with two.

Read more [www.newyorker.com]

Well, yes it does read as the Stones lifted some riffs from Ry but it was the tuning itself I was referring to. So far as I know, Ry never used the 5 string G tuning.

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mccparty
Correct, Ry Cooder did not invent the tuning, but he sure took it to the next level! Thanks for the heads up. Go Ry Go!

Well spoken my guitar toting friend!

Jesus. So tired of this old bugaboo. Musicians show each other licks and tunings all the time. Ry Cooder is a great guitarist, but did he write "Honky Tonk Women"? No. Could he have written "Brown Sugar" or "Start Me Up" (both of which use open G)? Of course not. Influences are what make music music. Elvis Presley loved the blues as well as Dean Martin, but he turned those influences into...Elvis Presley. Nothing the Stones have ever done sounds remotely like Ry Cooder. If you want an example of stealing, it's more like John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band stealing Springsteen's entire sound, or Steve Miller taking that whole Free riff from "All Right Now" to create one of his hits. The Stones were able to learn from Cooder, as they learned from Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Gram Parsons and so many others. What they DID with what they learned is what makes them so special.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-30 19:07 by 71Tele.

he shared information with Keith and Mick. thats what players do, and songwriters use what they learn.

Keith was experimenting with lots of tunings wasn't he?
this article makes it sound like he ripped off Ry Cooder.

I'd say Keith adapted that open G tuning for his own sound pretty well.

'Downtown Suzie' is a great example of what Keith was able to learn from Ry:

"He was playing by himself in the studio, goofing around with some changes, when Mick Jagger danced over and said, How do you do that? You tune the E string down to D, place your fingers there, and pull them off quickly, that’s very good. Keith, perhaps you should see this. And before long, the Rolling Stones were collecting royalties for “Honky Tonk Women,” which sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song and absolutely nothing like any other song ever produced by the Rolling Stones in more than forty years."

Mmm...is the writer simply an imbecile or is he high? Or is he playing some kind of joke?
Also, which Ry Cooder song does it sound "precisely" like?

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stones78
Also, which Ry Cooder song does it sound "precisely" like?

I think he was saying it sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song in general, not any specific song.

The stuff on the Let It Bleed session sounded familiar...

Alec Wilkinson on Cooder and the Stones in a 1999 piece for Esquire:

he was brought into the studio to assist the Rolling Stones in recording their album Let It Bleed, and one day he was playing guitar, goofing around, clicking this and popping that, and Mick Jagger came dancing over and said, "Oh that's very interesting, what you're playing; how do you do that? You tune the E strings down to a D, and you put your fingers there, oh, I see, and you pull them off quickly like that, yes, that's very good," and Cooder showed him the whole thing--he was young, he didn't know that sometimes you got to keep your stuff indoors--and the next thing he knew, the Rolling Stones were picking up royalties for "Honky Tonk Women," which sounds precisely like a song arranged by Ry Cooder and absolutely nothing like any other song ever arranged in thirty years by the Rolling Stones.

Read more: [www.esquire.com]

Wilkinson in the current New Yorker:

Cooder had been hired to augment the Rolling Stones during the recording of “Let It Bleed.” He was playing by himself in the studio, goofing around with some changes, when Mick Jagger danced over and said, How do you do that? You tune the E string down to D, place your fingers there, and pull them off quickly, that’s very good. Keith, perhaps you should see this. And before long, the Rolling Stones were collecting royalties for “Honky Tonk Women,” which sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song and absolutely nothing like any other song ever produced by the Rolling Stones in more than forty years.

Read more [www.newyorker.com]

Oh well, I guess he's allowed to rewrite (barely) his own stuff.

guess he got paid twice for the same sh*t


thanks for the research, Rev.

I like Ry. His stuff with Hiatt is tops.

But Ry never wrote anything even similar to Gimme Shelter or Can't You Hear Me Knocking. All Down The Line and Soul Survivor. Between the two, Ry has written some pretty laughable songs. I guess he needed a front-man like Hiatt. Even Sonny Landreth wrote better songs than Ry [writer's opinion].

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duke richardson
guess he got paid twice for the same sh*t

Not exactly. He did update "thirty" to "forty"....

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Munichhilton
I like Ry. His stuff with Hiatt is tops.

But Ry never wrote anything even similar to Gimme Shelter or Can't You Hear Me Knocking. All Down The Line and Soul Survivor. Between the two, Ry has written some pretty laughable songs. I guess he needed a front-man like Hiatt. Even Sonny Landreth wrote better songs than Ry [writer's opinion].

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Munichhilton
I like Ry. His stuff with Hiatt is tops.

But Ry never wrote anything even similar to Gimme Shelter or Can't You Hear Me Knocking. All Down The Line and Soul Survivor. Between the two, Ry has written some pretty laughable songs. I guess he needed a front-man like Hiatt. Even Sonny Landreth wrote better songs than Ry [writer's opinion].

I think one of Ry's strengths, besides his superb guitar playing, is not so much his song writing as it is his interpretations of other people's songs.

OMG again?
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-30 23:43 by Redhotcarpet.

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duke richardson
he shared information with Keith and Mick. thats what players do, and songwriters use what they learn.

Keith was experimenting with lots of tunings wasn't he?
this article makes it sound like he ripped off Ry Cooder.

I'd say Keith adapted that open G tuning for his own sound pretty well.

that is ry cooder playing not keith.

Hey people, I'm going to see Ry TOMORROW during and after his show in San Francisco. Maybe I could ask him? Not sure what the question is. Did you invent 5 string playing? Did you hold Keith's hand and what exactly did you show him? Maybe just Where did you first learn the 5 string open G tuning? Looking forward to his show! Yeah baby...peace.

that is ry cooder playing not keith.

yes thats for sure. and its great.




Did you invent 5 string playing?

I think Keith turned the open G into his version by taking the top string off, making it 5 string

either way I don't think he intended to copy anybody (except maybe Chuck Berry and James Burton, earlier)
.the open G 5 string thing is pretty much Keith, but as he's said, he learned open G from Ry.

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bustedtrousers

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stones78
Also, which Ry Cooder song does it sound "precisely" like?

I think he was saying it sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song in general, not any specific song.

Well, but that's pretty vague since Ry Cooder's style's pretty varied and eclectic as anyone can see from of all his great albums and HTW does not sound like a Ry Cooder song at all.

What tuning did Brian use for "Little Red Rooster" in 1964? Must have been some open chord, surely not standard tuning? Also, Keith's playing on JJF would have been well before Ry showed up to help out with "Gimme Shelter".

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TippyToe
What tuning did Brian use for "Little Red Rooster" in 1964? Must have been some open chord, surely not standard tuning? Also, Keith's playing on JJF would have been well before Ry showed up to help out with "Gimme Shelter".

I believe Brian used open G, but only for straight slide...Keith was using the open d/open E shapes for JJF and SFM, also Monkey Man, You Got The Silver, etc. Keith's innovation on open G was the way he used the voicings to create a signature sound.

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71Tele
Keith's innovation on open G was the way he used the voicings to create a signature sound.

yeah I totally agree with that. 5 strings two fingers and one @#$%& as he put it. He definately was inovative in the way he fretted chords and combined them into orchestrated songs with all his open tunings (E, D and G). There is a great video somewhere on You tube of him playing SFM in an open D tuning with a capo on the second fret (making it an open E tuning with slightly looser strings). His use of the capo cannot be overlooked here. Often on frets 2 or 4 in my observations. peace.

Here's some trivia. Ry Cooders's album BeBop Deluxe was the first all digital (DDD) CD ever produced.

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Naturalust
Hey people, I'm going to see Ry TOMORROW during and after his show in San Francisco. Maybe I could ask him? Not sure what the question is. Did you invent 5 string playing? Did you hold Keith's hand and what exactly did you show him? Maybe just Where did you first learn the 5 string open G tuning? Looking forward to his show! Yeah baby...peace.

Crap!!!! He's playing in the City tomorrow? Sh-it! Why didn't I know about this sooner???

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stones78

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bustedtrousers

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stones78
Also, which Ry Cooder song does it sound "precisely" like?

I think he was saying it sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song in general, not any specific song.

Well, but that's pretty vague since Ry Cooder's style's pretty varied and eclectic as anyone can see from of all his great albums and HTW does not sound like a Ry Cooder song at all.

Yeah, I know what you mean 78. I'm actually not familiar with Ry's stuff at all, I've heard very little if any of his output, so I personally can't say HTW does or doesn't sound like Ry's stuff. I was just pointing out what I thought the writer meant.

Actually, I was originally going to also add that it wasn't the best way of putting it, because the way he worded it is so open to misinterpretation, but I decided to delete that bit before posting. And who knows, maybe you're right and he meant it literally, but without giving an example, which he should have. Either way, it wasn't the best way to say it.

I also think the other half of his statement- "and absolutely nothing like any other song ever produced by the Rolling Stones in more than forty years." -is complete bullshyte. To me, Brown Sugar and Honky Tonk Women have always seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Not that they sound exactly alike or anything, just that they very much define the Stones sound, especially during that era. To me, there is a familiarity in sound and vibe in a lot of the songs from 68-72, without getting repetitive or sounding like copycats of each other. To say that HTW sounds like some kind of anomaly or something is just crazy.

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71Tele

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TippyToe
What tuning did Brian use for "Little Red Rooster" in 1964? Must have been some open chord, surely not standard tuning? Also, Keith's playing on JJF would have been well before Ry showed up to help out with "Gimme Shelter".

I believe Brian used open G, but only for straight slide...Keith was using the open d/open E shapes for JJF and SFM, also Monkey Man, You Got The Silver, etc. Keith's innovation on open G was the way he used the voicings to create a signature sound.

Yeah and that's what he took from Ry and developed into his own style. I'd say that's the reason Let it Bleed has riffs and licks that you really wont hear on other Stones records. Boudoir Stomp/Edward's Thrump Up (mid section Midnight Rambler), Memo from turner (HTW, style), Downtown Suzie (HTW) and who knows what Keith recorded when Ry was in the studio. Keiths style in 1969 has Ry all over it. It's not about songwriting credits but like i said earlier, it was very clever of Mick and Keith to give Ry credits for slide and mandolin on Sister Morphine and Love in vain.

The chunky rhythm on Live with me, the funky riffing on Monkey man, the mid section of Midnight Rambler and the fills in YCAGWYW all sound very much like Ry. Not that he played it but it's obvious where Keith got the licks or the style from. And around Exile Keith becomes the open G-Keith everybody knows. My point is that Keith really sucked in everyhing he could from Gram and Ry and whoever else in 1968/1969. This is when he really transforms but he's still "stealing" and using stuff in his own songs. The songs are his but the gloves are off. What made Ry bitter would be, I guess, that Keith actually recorded the sessions and used it. I believe Cooder was naive.

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21stcenturystones
Here's some trivia. Ry Cooders's album BeBop Deluxe was the first all digital (DDD) CD ever produced.

You mean Bop Till You Drop? Yes, it was one of the first commercially available digital recordings. Didn't it originally come out on vinyl? Sounded great, then the CD came out and sounded tinny. Point being, it was a digital recording EQd to sound good on vinyl.