With Ry Cooder

Mike Harding presents an hour of the very best in folk, roots and acoustic music, including classic tracks and the best new releases. This week, Mike talks to one of the world's greatest roots musicians: the Grammy Award-winning guitarist, songwriter and producer Ry Cooder.

Ry's fifteenth solo album, Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down, is a scathing and often humorous attack on the people he thinks are responsible for so many of the world's social ills. The new album comes more than four decades into a remarkable career that began with Ry playing in LA band the Rising Sons with Taj Mahal.

He later joined Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and recorded session guitar for the Rolling Stones, but his passion for the roots music of the USA, and beyond, has spawned a string of classic solo albums, and led to acclaimed collaborations with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ali Farka Touré and Buena Vista Social Club. In 2003 he was named the eighth best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

On this week's programme, Ry talks to Mike Harding about the making of his new album, and how he channelled the outrage that fuelled this latest collection.