Ray Cooper is a session percussionist whose 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 and especially Elton John (he played on most of his '70s albums). Cooper had also played on Nicky Hopkins' 1973 solo album.



Ray Cooper got his short stint with the Stones playing percussion for their 1974 "It's Only Rock and Roll" album. Later in that decade he recorded with George Harrison, Bryan Ferry, Wings and Art Garfunkel among others. Since then he's recorded with Paul McCartney and Elton John again, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters, the Traveling Wilburys and Ravi Shankar to name just a few.



In 1981, Ray Cooper contributed to Bill Wyman's's third solo album. In 1983, he participated in the Clapton, Page, Beck and other stars' (including Bill & Charlie) short tour for the Ronnie Lane ARMS charity.



In 1985, Cooper appeared on both Mick Jaggers'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".



Continually modified to this day, Ray Cooper's percussion set offers an enormous array of percussion instruments for sonic diversity such as the crash cymbals, tambourine, congas, bongo's, cowbells, tubular bells, toms, the gong, and tambourine. For two decades Ray Cooper honed his technique; In the 1990s, he reinvented his style. Ray Cooper is known for the 7 minute percussion and drum solos he performed during the years 1990-1991 for Eric Clapton, and for the 7 minute percussion and drum solos during the year 1994 during all the Face to Face Tours with Billy Joel, and Elton John, and the tours with the Elton John band during the years of 1994-1995.