Jeff Cook, cofounder of superstar country band Alabama, has died

Jeff Cook
Jeff Cook of superstar country band Alabama has died at age 73. (Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP)Jeff Daly/Invision/AP

In the early ‘70s, guitarist Jeff Cook started a band called Wildcountry with his cousins, and five years later the band changed their name to Alabama. Under that second appellation, the Fort Payne founded group became one of the biggest country-music acts of all-time. On Nov. 8, the band confirmed on social media Cook had died the previous day. He was 73.

In recent years, Cook stared down the challenges of Parkinson’s disease, which impacted his ability to play music and forced him to step away from the band around 2018.

In a joint statement the surviving members of Alabama, Cook’s cousins Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry, said Cook, “was a champion in all he attempted and he courageously faced his battle with a positive attitude.” The statement said Cook had “passed away peacefully” and “with his family and close friends by his side at his beach home in Destin, Florida.”

Whether playing his signature double-neck guitar, singing backing vocals or picking up a fiddle, Cook was a vital musical and visual component of Alabama. Together, the group sold more than 73 million albums and notched over 40 country number-one hits, including “Mountain Music,” “40 Hour Week,” “Feels So Right,” “Old Flame,” “The Closer You Get” and “Song of the South.”

As a member of Alabama, Cook is a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee. The Fort Payne High School grad and former Gadsden State Community College student is also a member of the Musicians Hall of Fame and Fiddlers Hall of Fame and a Gibson’s Guitarist of the Year honoree.

According to Alabama’s statement, Cook is survived by his wife of 27 years Lisa Cook, his mother Betty Cook, brother David Cook, Crystal Cook, his father-in-law Jerrial Williams, his brother-in-law Randy Williams and many nieces and nephews.

After news of Cook’s death, musicians took to Twitter to pay their respects. Country singer Travis Tritt posted, “Sending out my deepest condolences to the family, friends and band mates of Jeff Cook from Alabama. Such a great guy and one heckuva bass fisherman. He will be truly missed.”

Americana superstar and fellow Alabama native Jason Isbell posted, “Such sad news. Jeff was a sweet, sweet man and a hugely influential musician for us Alabama folks. Heartbreaking.”

Country-gospel vocal quartet the Oak Ridge Boys posted, “Heartbreaking news. Friend and brother Jeff Cook of Alabama has passed. Goodbye, Jeff. Rest easy, the battles have ended.”

Musicians aren’t the only ones whose lives Alabama’s music was a fixture of. ESPN personality Marty Smith posted on Twitter, “Grateful for the generational joy his talent provided my family, joy that will live on through his music.”

In 2015, I interviewed Jeff Cook around the time Alabama released “Southern Drawl,” the band’s 23rd album (and, to date, most recent) and their first in 14 years. Cook told me, “The hardest part of the album was finding what we felt like were good songs. The easiest thing was singing together.”

Asked about his classic guitar solo on Alabama’s 1979 hit “My Home’s In Alabama,” Cook told me, “That’s just one of those things that just came as I played it. I don’t know if I’ve ever played it the same way twice.” He said he thought he probably had played a Music Man brand guitar on the studio version of that solo.

Although Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page is by far the most widely known double-neck guitar player, Cook told me he got the inspiration to pick up a double-neck from early country musicians Joe Maphis and Red Foley. “I remember seeing on TV a guy playing a double-neck, one neck a little shorter,” Cook recalled. “It had always been bubbling in the back of my mind to get one so finally I took two Music Mans and built it myself. I built the first two double-decks. I started and built those first double-decks while I was at the Bowery (a bar) in Myrtle Beach.”

In Alabama’s early days, the band played marathon sets for tourists down in Myrtle Beach. The experience honed the band on multiple levels, Cook said. “Lots of time we’d start 8:30 or nine o’clock in the morning and play until one o’clock (a.m.) with a lunch break around six. So I think it was the endurance of the road. And the ability to entertain people, not necessarily just when you’re singing.”

Cooked credited Alabama’s musical longevity partly to the familial connected between he and his [distant] cousins: Owen, the band’s charismatic frontman, and affable bassist Gentry. “Maybe that has something to do with the way we say words and pronounce things and helps us with our harmonies.”

For their golden harmony vocals, a signature aspect of their sound, Alabama drew inspiration from the likes of Statler Brothers and Oak Ridge Boys, Cook said. “I won’t say we patterned our harmony on them, because it’s apples and oranges.”

When Cook wasn’t playing music or recording in his own studio, fishing was his jam. With a house on Lake Guntersville, Cook liked to fish for bass mostly, he said. “But I’ll catch anything that will bite. One of the governors made me a lifetime fishing ambassador for the state of Alabama. I don’t know what that means but it looks good on my truck.”

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