Ray Cooper
Ray Cooper (born August 19, 1942 in Watford, Hertfordshire)
is an English
musician.
He is a session and road-tour percussionist who has worked with Pink
Floyd, Sting,
George Harrison, Eric
Clapton, and Elton John.
Ray Cooper's recording career started in the 1960s, recording
with The
Who, among others, and is still going. Among his early jobs
were America, Carly
Simon, David Essex, Blue Mink.
Most notable was his work with Elton John, for whom he played
on most of his 1970s albums. He had also played on Nicky
Hopkins' 1973
solo album.
Cooper got his short stint with the Rolling
Stones playing percussion for their 1974 It's
Only Rock'n Roll album.
Later in that decade he recorded with George
Harrison, Bryan Ferry, Wings
and Art
Garfunkel among others. Since then he has recorded with Paul
McCartney and Elton John again, Ringo
Starr, Eric Clapton, Roger
Waters, The Traveling Wilburys and Ravi
Shankar among others.
His relationship with the Rolling Stones continued into the
1980's. In 1981, Cooper contributed to Bill
Wyman's third solo album. In 1983, he participated in a short tour for the Ronnie
Lane ARMS charity along with Eric Clapton, Jimmy
Page, Jeff Beck and other stars
(including Bill Wyman & Charlie
Watts). In 1985,
Cooper appeared on both Mick Jagger's She's The Boss
album and Bill Wyman's Willie and the Poor Boys project. In 1997, he was again
teamed up with Bill for Struttin' Our Stuff.
Notable is his percussion playing in the 1992 Eric
Clapton Unplugged performance
as well as playing in the 2002 Concert For George, a tribute to
deceased former Beatle George Harrison.
He has also worked in films, producing and performing music in
several of Terry Gilliam's productions, and
playing small roles such as playing the role of the preacher in the
feature film "Popeye" (1980) starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall.
Trivia
A little known fact about Ray is that the role of Moxey in the
hit television series Auf Wiedersehen Pet was actually
written for Ray by Dick Clement and Ian
La Frenais with Moxey originally being cast as an Irishman.The role was
however given to Christopher Fairbank who opted
to play him as a scouser
due to Ray being unable to make it to the audition.
External link
