Story by Chris Graham 

Eli Cook has a musical versatility that should serve him well on that magical day when he becomes Central Virginia’s next big thing.

And he can thank his parents for that.

“Growing up, my parents had a big record collection - and they had a lot of blues in it, Muddy Watters, John Lee Hooker and whatnot. So that’s what I heard - and when I started playing guitar, and I was 14 when I started playing guitar, and everybody else was playing heavy metal and punk rock, I liked the blues better, so that’s what I learned how to play,” says Cook, a 20-year-old from Nelson County whose band, the Eli Cook Band, recently released its second CD, “ElectricHolyFireWater.”

“ElectricHolyFireWater” shows Cook’s evolution as a musician - after “Miss Blues’ Child,” his first release, which was heavy with old-school Delta blues, “ElectricHolyFireWater” sounds more like early 1990s Seattle grunge than anything else.

Listening to the tunes - “Bury Me,” “Light That Gasoline,” “Black Tattoo” - I swear that I was able to detect something in the way of striking similarities between the two genres. The rhythms flowing off Cook’s guitar sound to my ears very much like they have a basis in the blues of Watters and Hooker and B.B. King and others.

Cook told me that he doesn’t necessarily have that mindset as he writes his music.

“I’m trying to write original material - and blues can get monotonous, you know, doing the same 12-bar shuffles,” Cook says. “It’s great for getting gigs playing the bars - but when I actually try to do something original, I have to branch out. And grunge is what I found that seems to be the most interesting - because a lot of that stuff, especially bands like Soundgarden, the music itself is very different.

“It’s very fun to play - neat chord structures to play around with, as well as the lyrics being more insightful,” Cook says.

“Technically, there’s very little in common between the two genres,” Cook says. “The blues purists say if it’s not 12 bars, then it’s not blues. But the blues that I’ve always liked the best is the very old stuff, more Delta - Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell - and they’re not very structured. The musicians that played with them would say that it was hard to follow them - that they tended to be more random. But the singing and the vibe and the general feeling it created was more unique and more soulful than when it became more traditionalized and straightforward and formatted.
“That old vibey stuff, I felt, kind of works with the heavier stuff from today.”

Cook is working on broadening his musical horizons in another fashion. He worked a gig at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., last year that linked him up with West African percussionist Darrell Rose.

“I’ve done a couple of shows with him since where we’ve tried to blend the blues with the West African - and it’s pretty unique. It’s kind of fun to play. I’d like to explore that more in the future,” Cook says.

Cook shrugs off the talk in local music circles and more and more in the local media that he is poised to soon become a breakout star.

“As long as it stays enjoyable and doesn’t become work to me, that’s what I’m looking for,” Cook says.

“I would say that going to the gigs, I get paid to set up and tear down - but the playing is for free. As long as I feel that way, and not lose money doing it, and can keep doing it, that’s all I can really hope for.

“I try not to have visions of grandeur or anything,” Cook says.

Filed under: 7-April 2007 Issue