Edmonton troubadour Scott Cook is a busy man.
Between booking, promoting and playing more than 150 dates a year, touring back and forth across the continent while living out of his van, he's managed to release three full-length albums in the last four years.
His third, Moonlit Rambles, shows the Prairie balladeer in fine form, deepening his craft and raising the stakes. Three-part harmonies, touches of electric, acoustic and tenor guitars, accordion, fiddle, organ, dobro and pedal steel colour the arrangements, but at the heart of things is a mellow fingerstyle groove and a plain-spoken clarity that's rarely heard these days.
"Scott Cook has distilled his travels down into songs powered by a sharp eye for imagery, a healthy dose of humanity and that unforgettable voice, that at the same time intones the rigors of the road and the most comfortable couch you have ever slept on," says three-time Juno winner David Francey.
To celebrate the release, Cook and his band the Long Weekends are taking their danceable blend of folk, roots and reggae on a two-month tour of Alberta and B.C. bandmates Jesse Dee and Jacquie B are along for the ride with songs from their coming release Our Ghosts Will Fill These Walls.
"Basically, this is exactly the kind of act you'd be happy to stumble down the hill or through the birches and hear at a music festival ... warm like a campfire, familiar like the lake down the road ... deep-thinking, introspective stuff," writes Fish Griwkowsky of the Edmonton Sun.
Info, tunes, and hobo travelogue can be found on www.scottcook.net and www.jesseandjacquie.com.
Scott Cook and the Long Weekends will play the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland this Sunday at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door.
"Edmonton-based songwriter Scott Cook belongs to that fine tradition of traveling minstrels like Woody Guthrie ... definitely a writer to keep an eye on," Barry Hammond writes in Penguin Eggs magazine.
— Scott Cook