32 tracks from guitar legends such as Mark Knopfler, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Allman Brothers Band, B.B. King, Fleetwood Mac, Ry Cooder, ZZ Top, Gary Moore, Chris Rea, Santana and more, all help make this 2 CD set a sure fire hit.

Ry Cooder's soundtrack for The Long Riders received a top-notch treatment from Warner Bros. (Japan), who not only did an excellent remastering job, but backed it up with English lyrics to the songs, notes, and a Japanese insert. Cooder was in fine form with this score, using original material, unusual and anachronistic instruments (saz, tamboura, electric guitar), and elements of traditional songs from the Civil War period. As a result, the album can be appreciated as a unique entity, away from the film – and bonded to the film, the music provides grace and power to the onscreen events.

Ry Cooder understands that a great song is a great song, whether it was written before the Depression or last week. Still, at the same time he isn't afraid to explore new avenues and possibilities for the material. Like his three previous records, Paradise and Lunch is filled with treasures which become part of a world where eras and styles converge without ever sounding forced or contrived. One may think that an album that contains a traditional railroad song, tunes by assorted blues greats, and a Negro spiritual alongside selections by the likes of Bobby Womack, Burt Bacharach, and Little Milton may lack cohesiveness or merely come across as a history lesson, but to Cooder this music is all part of the same fabric and is as relevant and accessible as anything else that may be happening at the time. No matter when it was written or how it may have been done in the past, the tracks, led by Cooder's brilliant guitar, are taken to new territory where they can coexist. It's as if Washington Phillips' "Tattler" could have shared a place on the charts with Womack's "It's All Over Now" or Little Milton's "If Walls Could Talk".

Chávez Ravine: A Record by Ry Cooder is the twelfth studio album by Ry Cooder. It is the first concept album and historical album by Ry Cooder which tells the story of Chávez Ravine, a Mexican-American community demolished in the 1950s in order to build public housing. The housing was never built. Ultimately the Brooklyn Dodgers built a stadium on the site as part of their move to Los Angeles. Chávez Ravine was nominated for "Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album" in 2006.

My Name Is Buddy: Another Record by Ry Cooder is the thirteenth studio album by Ry Cooder. It is the second social-political concept album by Ry Cooder. Cooder has described it as the second in a trilogy that began with Chávez Ravine and concluded with I, Flathead. The album is packaged in a small booklet that includes a brief story and drawing to accompany each song. Both the songs and the stories relate tales from the viewpoint of the characters, Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse, and Reverend Tom Toad. The liner notes ask listeners/readers to join them as they "Journey through time and space in days of labor, big bosses, farm failures, strikes, company cops, sundown towns, hobos, and trains… the America of yesteryear".

"The Musician's Musician". "The Master of the Eclectic". There are probably a dozen more titles by which this "guitar player" is known. To even refer to him as a guitar player is probably a gross mislabeling of this musician. He defies any sort of categorization; this is his greatest strength and for some his weakness. The theme for these nine cuts is rhythm of all different ilk. I won't even give the parameters because he seems to have none. I wondered how many different instruments he played on this album (I thought I counted five different types of guitar); it only says guitar and vocal for his credits. Listen to his version of "All Shook Up," more bop and rhythm than Elvis could put into four of his songs. It seems musicians line up to play with him, and they feel he did them a favor by letting them play on his albums. He always gives them plenty of space to do what they do. This CD will make the dead start tapping their toes.

Bop till You Drop is Ry Cooder's eighth album, released in 1979. This was the first major-label digitally recorded album of Pop music. The album consisted almost entirely of covers of earlier R&B and rock'n'roll classics, including Elvis Presley's "Little Sister" and the 1965 Fontella Bass-Bobby McClure hit "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing", on which Cooder duetted with soul star Chaka Khan, who also performed on the only original track on the album, "Down in Hollywood".