Yesterday I referenced Ry Cooder in a post. Actually, Joe Bonamassa referenced him in a video and I posted about Joe’s video on the blog… and… oh whatever!

FACT: RY COODER IS A SLIDE GUITAR VIRTUOSO.

He was ranked “Number 8″ on Rolling Stone Magazine’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”

Here is what they had to say about him:

In Ry Cooder’s hands, the guitar becomes a time machine. Ever since he began as a teen prodigy in the Sixties, he has been a virtuoso in a host of guitar styles going back to the most primal bottleneck blues, country, vintage jazz, Hawaiian slack-key guitar, Bahamian folk music and countless other styles. He’s combined these different musical idioms into his own eclectic style as one of the world’s foremost performing musicologists.

Ry Cooder’s slide guitar playing takes up a lot of space on my iPod — and I am not complaining about it at all!

Check out this video of Ry Cooder playing Vigilante Man — acoustic slide style:

Joe Bonamassa treated some of his fans to an evening of music and dialogue at the Guitar Center in Hollywood, California.

A lot of the session was recorded and posted on Guitar Center TV & YouTube.  You can FOLLOW THIS LINK to see the entire video list.  My favorite session was Joe playing slide and talking about his major influences like Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Johnny Winter and Warren Haynes.

Check out this wicked slide playing: