Ray Cooper

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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 1970's 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.

He has also worked in films, producing and performing music in several of Terry Gilliam's productions, and playing small roles.

[edit] 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.