It’s been a long road so far Canadian based roots troubadour Scott Cook. He’s spent most of the last eight years on the highways and byways of Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia making his home where he’s parked, picking up stories and scratching out a living in the song-trafficking trade.
After receiving wide spread praise in Canada, US and UK for Scott Cook’s latest album One More Time Around, Cook has now shifted is scope to Australia where he has officially released the record and embarked on a huge national tour spanning over 3 months, including several festival shows such as Woodford Folk Festival.
One More Time Around was recorded after a long stint on the road in Scott Cooks home Edmonton, Canada with a familiar cast of collaborators including engineer Mr. Smith who he has worked with on several records in the past. The ten-song album shows the prairie balladeer in fine form, refining his song-craft and confronting the hard lessons learned and re-learned along the last few years of roads.
Longtime fans will hear a more mature, stripped down approach than found on his previous albums. Acoustic and electric guitars, upright bass, piano, fiddle, and dobro dot the landscape but leave plenty of room for his finger-style guitar and claw hammer banjo to breathe, and his plain-spoken, sometimes painfully honest lyrics to land. Road-worn, painfully honest, and deeply human his tunes weave together folk, roots, blues, soul and country with spacious arrangements.
Right from the opening track, ‘Pass It Along’, which starts out talking about a guitar and ends up being about the future of our country and this whole imperilled Earth, it’s clear that we’re in the company of an old hand at the game who’s playing for keeps. The whole album is an extended dialogue between optimism and despair—at the level of our individual lives, our broken relationships and our society as a whole. There are no easy assurances to be found here but there just may be hope for us yet.
One More Time Around has been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award and its opening track ‘Pass It Along’ won the Folk and Acoustic category UK Songwriting Contest with UK magazine Maverick Country naming him “one of Canada’s most inspiring and imaginative storytellers.”
Cook has been touring the world in support of his fifth release and is widely regarded as one of the hardest working troubadours on the road today, averaging over 160 shows and a dozen music festivals every year since 2007. All the hard miles notwithstanding, he still believes that songs can change your life, and your life can change the world.
SCOTT COOK 2016 AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Thursday January 14 – Sutherland Acoustic Club, Gymea, NSW
Friday January 15 – The Acoustic Picnic, Sydney, NSW
Wednesday January 20 – Smith’s Alternative, Canberra, ACT
Thursday Jan 21 – Billyroy’s Blues Bar, Bendigo, VIC
Friday January 22 – Newstead Live Music Festival, Newstead, VIC
Sunday January 31 – Saints & Sailors, Portarlington, VIC
Thursday February 4 – South Coast Folk Club, Port Noarlunga, SA
Friday February 5 – Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide, SA
Sunday February 7 – Red Poles Gallery, McLaren Vale, SA
Sunday February 7 – The Groove Garden, McLaren Vale, SA
Saturday February 13 -Tanswells Hotel, Beechworth, VIC
Sunday February 14 – Wandi Pub, Wadiligong, VIC
Friday February 19 – Kameruka Hall, Candelo, NSW
Saturday February 27 – Troubadour Acoustic Club, Woy Woy, NSW
Saturday March 5 – The Shack, Collaroy, NSW
Sunday March 6 – Hotel Blue, Katoomba, NSW
Friday March 11 – Burke & Wills Folk Festival, Mia Mia, VIC
Thursday March 17 – The Lomond Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Friday March 18 – Yackandandah Folk Festival, Yackandandah, VIC