Scott Cook

If you listen well, lifelong traveler and musical hobo Scott Cook's new album may remind you just how rare a commodity honesty is in today's music scene. There's an awful lot of talk about it, but very few songwriters really wear their hearts on their sleeve, and even fewer do it with such lyrical craftsmanship and raw feeling as you'll hear on this record. It has been two years and a lot of roads traveled since Scott Cook traded in his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan for a full-time ...

If you listen well, lifelong traveler and musical hobo Scott Cook's new album may remind you just how rare a commodity honesty is in today's music scene. There's an awful lot of talk about it, but very few songwriters really wear their hearts on their sleeve, and even fewer do it with such lyrical craftsmanship and raw feeling as you'll hear on this record. It has been two years and a lot of roads traveled since Scott Cook traded in his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan for a full-time living as a musician on the road in North America, and while he's certainly experienced his share of hardships and struggle along the way, he isn't thinking of quitting. His self-published 2007 debut, Long Way to Wander, made the national folk top ten on college and community radio, and kept him on the road for the better part of two years, living in his van, playing constantly, picking up stories and passing them on. His newest "love letter to the world" is a fitting follow-up, and his best work to date. Entitled This One's on the House, it's a collection of road stories, existential ramblings, and musings on love, loss, and the courage to love again. The musical palate is even broader this time, with nods to folk, roots, country, and soul, and the capable help of some of Edmonton's finest players: Jesse Dee on electric guitar, Bill Bourne on guitar and vocals, Doug Organ on piano and hammond organ, Thom Golub and Moses Gregg on upright bass, Dwayne Hrynkiw and Pascal Lecours on drums, Darrek Anderson on pedal steel, Cam Neufeld on fiddle, Jason Kodie on accordion, Mike Sadava on mandolin, and Lynett McKell, Jacquie B, Megan Kemshead, Haley Myrol and Dana Wylie on vocals, as well as Matthew Ord and Jez Hellard from England, playing guitars and harmonica respectively. Engineer Doug Organ at Edmontone Studios and mixer Brad Smith worked together with Scott to produce a spacious, lushly textured album that will surprise Cook's longtime fans and undoubtedly introduce many more to the work of this prairie balladeer.