Music Friday: "Exodus of Venus"

Elizabeth Cook is a musician I haven't listened to much lately, but she has a new album out that has received good reviews. I'm going to have to check it out. I really enjoyed her previous album, Welder. 

Anyway, here's the title track of the new album. 

Elizabeth Cook on Letterman

The other night singer/songwriter Elizabeth Cook was a guest on The Late Show.

I featured a couple of Cook's tunes on a Music Friday a while back, but her visit to Letterman's show was to promote her satellite radio program on "Outlaw Country" since Dave seems to have taken a liking to her program.

It's one of the more entertaining interviews I've seen on a late night program in a while.

As much as I bristle at how both Dave and the audience were laughing at her because it's easy to make fun of someone with a Southern accent, I think Ms. Cook showed how she's one of the more intriguing music personalities out there right now. As they like to say in Alabama, she "showed out" on the program.

Granted, Cook did take a light-hearted approach to talking about her family background, and she showed how she doesn't take herself too seriously. However, I typically have sensitive antennae about how people might think Southerners or people from humble backgrounds like Cook are appropriate for close-minded ridicule and easy punch lines. The fools often get played with Southern accents in American culture, which pisses me off.

Regardless, Letterman having Justin Townes Earle on his program months ago was a good sign, and I look forward to watching Cook play on his show in the future. Now if he books Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and Amanda Shires, I'd be really pleased.

!Viva Americana Music!

If you want to check out the interview, it's below. Enjoy.

Music Friday: "Heroin Addict Sister" & "El Camino"

An album that made it on a lot of top ten/twenty lists for 2010 was Elizabeth Cook's Welder because it is a damn fine album.

While she could be easily classified as a country artist, this album isn't one of those slick, saccharine-laced, overproduced Nashville affairs, the kind of music Todd Snider refers to in his own song "Nashville" with the lines of "There isn't nothing wrong with rolling in the cashville./

There isn't nothing wrong that we can't fix in the mix."

And Cook has some old fashioned country credibility because she started performing quite early in her life, and her father, well, he was sent to prison for moonshining.

Both songs for today are links to her playing at the studios of KDHX, a St. Louis-based community radio station that is one of finest radio stations on the planet. "Heroin Addict Sister" is a song that'll rip your guts out, so I've also decided to offer the more light-hearted tune of "El Camino" to stave off the depressive effects of the first song. Click on the titles to watch the videos.