LimeWire Music Blog

It was a phone call that Jeff Cook will never forget. The phone rang early one morning in 2005 at the Alabama member’s home, and on the other end of the line was his cousin and fellow band member Randy Owen. “Randy called us and said, ‘We’re going to have some breakfast at Cracker Barrel,’ and I said sure. Everybody agreed, and we got down there,” he recalls, admitting he wasn’t sure what to expect that morning. Was it bad news? Was there something wrong with him or a family member? As it turns out, it was good news—very good news, indeed.

“[Randy] said, ‘I got a little news for you,” and he told us about it, and we were all elated,” Cook recalls of finding out that the group were going to be the newest members of the Country Music Hall Of Fame, being inducted alongside Glen Campbell and early pioneer Deford Bailey. Four years later, Cook still beams with pride when talking about the induction: “It’s a special thing. It’s like being in an elite club, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Make no mistake about it, Cook is very proud of his accomplishments with Alabama, but he’s also very excited about the music he has made since the group called it a day a few years back. Not long after Alabama’s last show together, he was back onstage with a new group, Jeff Cook and the Allstar Goodtime Band. “I actually started the new band the week after we did our last show. Actually, I couldn’t wait.”

The group has released several albums together, which have been well-received together, but Cook’s latest project is a solo project that focuses one of his favorite times of the year: Christmas time. Christmas Joy, his new musical offering for the holiday season, features some very special guests, as Cook tried to take a new approach with the record. “I tried to barely touch on anything that mentioned snow, because Alabama isn’t a big snow place, you know. I tried to pick songs that weren’t played to death every year. I was able to get a recording with the Ventures. Those guys have been together for about 50 years, and were put in the Rock and Roll hall of fame last year. I have my wife singing lead on a couple of things, ‘Away In A Manger’ and ‘Please Come Home For Christmas.’ I don’t think I’ve ever heard a woman do that song.”

Several of the songs on the album are ones that Cook is very familiar with, like the 1973 Merle Haggard classic “If We Make It Through December,” as well as “Homecoming Christmas,” which appeared on Alabama’s first Christmas platter back in 1985. That was written by Ronnie Rogers,” explains Cook. “He’s a great writer who did a lot for Alabama. I especially like the feel of this song, and I like the lead guitar riff I did in the middle of it.”

The title cut features the legendary Ventures band. “I was fortunate enough to get to meet them,” admits Cook, “and I got to introduce them in Nashville back about 1980. Our friendship has grown, and of course, there have been a few changes…some have passed on. It’s been a lot of fun and a privilege to know them. They have made quite the difference in a guitar players’ life.”

While Cook and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famers weren’t together at the same time in the studio, it’s a recording that Cook will treasure. “Well, they sent me the session, and I played the harmony guitar, and did some singing. Of course, the Ventures aren’t known for their singing, but Don Wilson, the rhythm guitar played wrote the song, and they had it as a vocal on a Japanese release.”

The album’s two cuts with his lovely wife Lisa singing lead are also a highlight. “This was her first effort on doing anything commercial, and I think she did a great job on what she did.” It’s not the first time that Cook has recorded with family members, as Cook, Owen, and Teddy Gentry are cousins, though maybe not as close as legend has it. “We played that up as a big point,” Cook says, “but in reality, but we’re not that close of cousins. Teddy is my fifth cousin, Randy’s my fourth, and they are third cousins. It was something to say, like the Gatlin Brothers or the Forester Sisters.” That’s just in terms of lineage, though, as all three have been extremely close before, during, and after the long run of Alabama.

In the post-Alabama years for Jeff Cook, he is proud of the diversity of music that he has released. He feels that it’s different from a lot of the other music that is out there. “I think it’s good. I don’t think it sounds like everything coming out of Nashville. I played some of the recent offerings for a former producer, and he said ‘This is refreshing,’ so that sounds like a good word to me.”

So the home life and the music life are both fine these days for Jeff Cook, and so is the fishing. He moved away from his native Fort Payne to Guntersville, Alabama a few years back, and has been named a “Fishing Ambassador” of the state several times, with the current Governor making that a lifetime appointment. “It’s not right for the fishing ambassador not to live on a lake.”