Elizabeth Cook

Why has singer/songwriter Elizabeth Cook, who was once a auditor (accountant) for the giant (USA) corporate accounting firm Price-Waterhouse, risen so quickly to prominence with the realm of the roots country or Americana music genre? Because Cook refuses to compromise her musical, “artistic integrity”.

And, with so many Americana artists retooling the mix of their music in an attempt to have mainstream, commercial success, Cook’s attitude, which is clearly displayed within the songs on her debut album “Hey Y’all”, remains fresh. In the following interview, Cook, a one-time beauty-pageant contestant (Miss Georgia), talks openly about her unique style of roots country music. And what life is like for her within the realm of newfound attention by the “hipster” set of upper class, musicology elitists who compromise the Americana audience in the USA. According to Cook, while being a part of the “en vogue”, crowd and a sensual female singer/songwriter does have moments, there still are life issues that she has to confront on a daily basis.

(Q)- Please state your name, age and place of birth.
Elizabeth Cook- I am Elizabeth cook and I was born on July 18, in Wildwood, Florida (USA).

(Q)-Is your life experience intentionally placed within the lyrics to the songs you write?

Elizabeth Cook- It’s not deliberate. I don’t sit down and write a song that reflects on a specific period of my life.

(Q)-How do you write a song in the first place?

Elizabeth Cook- I get an inspiration and then some musical hook or a line comes up and then I just spill it. Then in hindsight, I try and figure out what it is and what I’ve said and what it all means. Then I determine if it is any good or not.

(Q)- What about the song lyrics you write about a man and your relationship together? What is the inspiration and does that inspiration ever come from talking with women about men?

Elizabeth Cook- I’ve never been one of those girls who sits around and laments over men. That’s not to say that I don’t have heartaches and I don’t deal with it or that I have never cried over a guy, because I certainly have. (She laughs.) But, I think I also probably have a little bit more of an in-your-face-way of dealing with that. I kind of just handle it by myself on the inside. And then when I write something I look back and see what it is. I kind of just handle it all by myself on the inside and when I write something (song lyrics) I look back and see what it is.

(Q)-Define the phrase,” in-your-face”,
Elizabeth Cook- I don’t mean sonic (music). My sound is not aggressive. But my (songwriting) is. It’s not slicked up or pasteurized. I don’t like to write a line of a song that is just going to become filler.

(Q)You grew up in rural Wildwood, Florida (Sumter County) in the Seventies. Have you taken your personal experience growing up there and transformed those experiences into your song lyrics?
Elizabeth Cook- Yes.

(Q)-When you travel back home do you appreciate the experience more now that you’re in Nashville?
Elizabeth Cook- Yes I sure do! I would not change when I grew up or where I grew up for the modern day suburb or growing up in the greater suburban, “popup neighborhoods” with $500,000 homes.

(Q)-Why?
Elizabeth Cook- Because it seems like life there is a little sterile. It’s something to do with being American and living in that suburban lifestyle. It seems a little, “not unique”. Like your character kind of gets homogenized in with everybody else’s. But, I don’t really know, because that’s an outsider’s view. Like here in Nashville (Tennessee, USA.), I’m sure that everyone who lives here in $500,000 houses are unique individuals in their own way.But, it seems like the houses look the same as their neighbors and they all drive the same cars and they go to nice schools and they shop at the same stores in the same mall. And, they see the same movies and listen to the same music.

(Q)-In rural regions, the sense of the individual is often more celebrated. Like in the west, except in your case it has been a rural southern lifestyle. Maybe that is why Americana or roots country has become so popular in the USA. What perhaps we’re talking about here is that rural or “country” lifestyle has it’s strengths.
Elizabeth Cook- The more unique you are….while everyone is an individual, everybody has a story to tell, it just depends on if they can tap into that or no and tell it view their song.

(Q)-You have become a regular on the Grand Ole Opry (Legendary American, Nashville-based, live country radio broadcast.), which is rare for a country recording artist who has a debut album out. What does playing on the Grand Ole Opry mean to you and where is the institution’s place within the country music genre?
Elizabeth Cook- The (Grand Ole) Opry means things to me on several different levels. Sure there is the sentimental attachment of, “OK, there’s the circle where Hank Williams stood”. And, all of that is still very much there. But there are two other very important aspects of what the Opry means to me. One is that it basically saved my career, because I played the Opry before I had a record deal. A lot of artists, the first time they play the Opry, they’re already up and on their way career-wise. They just stop by and do their Opry show and have their, “sentimental moment”.

(Q)-And that, “sentimental moment”, often comes across as a but hokey.
Elizabeth Cook- (She laughs.) It’s just a little cliché. But, I needed the Opry to ask me back in a big way. Yes I was enjoying being there and yes I was thinking about the first time I ever went to the Opry at age nine and the (country music) legends who have performed there. But I was also standing up there the first time I played thinking, “My God, let me deliver.” So the Opry really helped me to re-ignite things for my career. Also there is the fact that both of my parents (Father’s name is Thomas.) were musicians and especially with my mother, (Mother’s name is Joyce Cook.) she wanted to be a country singer and a country star, more then anything. And, her generation really attached that to the Grand Ole Opry. That was everyone’s aspiration, to get to the Opry, that was the pinnacle. Now it’s more like the goal is to be able to headline your own show at an 80,000 seat stadium (She laughs.). That’s now the pinnacle. But, for my mother’s generation, the Opry really was the central mechanism, the nucleus of success in the country music world.

(Q)-This must be personally fulfilling to you to live out certain aspects of your mother’s dream, correct?
Elizabeth Cook- Yes. My mother grew up just outside of Charleston, West Virginia (USA) and listened to the Opry every Saturday night on the radio. It has been a real fulfillment for my mother (Joyce Cook) to get to see her daughter do what she has dreamed of doing. Also for her to get to be with me backstage. She now has relationships with some of the women who worked backstage back then, (In the Sixties and Seventies.) and she gets to speak with The Whites (Legendary country vocal group.). It has been wonderful for the both of us.

(Q)-The roots country and Americana genre certainly has a lion’s share of talented and successful female vocalists and singer/songwriters. Do you see your own style fitting into a, “Grande Plan”?

Elizabeth Cook- I connect with the listeners through edgy lyrics and maybe saying things that might make people flinch a little bit. (She laughs.) There’s a number of ways that people want to deal with their emotions and a number of things that people want to hear on a given day.

(Q)-You are now the darling of the roots country and Americana music audience and you are on the verge of mainstream success. What is it like to be Elizabeth Cook at this point in her life? New album is out and this is perhaps the most critical point in your career as a singer and songwriter?
Elizabeth Cook- Well, this past year, waiting for the album to be released, trying to get it scheduled within the deals and mergers in this industry, where you never know what’s going to happen, has been one of the toughest times of my life. I’ve had a ton of anxiety, I’ve been really anxious, really nervous. Because the wait and the tension have just been building and I know I’m going to find out what people think about it on at least, some level.

(Q)-Yet, your music comes across as written by a woman who is very sexual and self-confident.
Elizabeth Cook- Let me put it like this, if I’m going to put on a bikini and walk down by the beach, then I’m going to feel self conscious about it. I might be nervous about it and I might be insecure. But when I’m walking down on that beach, wearing my bikini, I’m going to throw my shoulders back and swing my hips! (She laughs.) I mean, once it’s all out there I’m going to stand behind it. I have to back it up and I have to be confident about it, but it isn’t easy. And I do believe in it for me, meaning that I’m satisfied with what I’ve done. It’s having it (Her new album.) thrown up for judgement. Having my work critiqued every time, reviewed in magazines for people to decide if it is any good or not, is something that I think will get easier with time. But right now, it is something that I have to learn how to deal with.

(Q)-In what way is that the case?
Elizabeth Cook- I want to be liked, I want to be loved, I want my music to be accepted. I want to take my music to the biggest commercial level that is possible, but I won’t compromise just anything to have that.

(Q)-Is there one recording artist in the USA whose success is that which you would like to have occur as with your own career?
Elizabeth Cook- The Dixie Chicks.

(Q)-Why?
Elizabeth Cook-They’re on their third album and they have complete musical control, they’re responsible for everything on that record, at least from a decision standpoint if not from the direct musical standpoint. And, they have all the confidence in the world about that. They’re very popular. They’ve sold over ten million records, they’ve won every award that you can win. They’ve also been on successful tours. So, they had to get to this point too. (Where Elizabeth feels she is with her debut album.) And I’ll bet when their first record came out they all felt a little bit of excitement and anxiety.

(Q)-Define, “country”.
Elizabeth Cook- Country what? Lifestyle or music?

(Q)-Musically. As in roots country or Americana music.

Elizabeth Cook-Country music I think is going to evolve and change just like anything else.At the core, it is an expression of real life that has often been supported by a certain type of instrumentation.

(Q)-Please define what a “country lifestyle” is.
Elizabeth Cook- It’s simplicity. It surrounds simplifying things, getting by, it includes nature and an appreciation of nature.