11/01/2024
We have had some amazing performers at The Shed Nanango but Scott has to be one of my favourites. Scott Cook sings sturdy, straight-talking songs that see the good in you. Born in West Virginia and raised on the Canadian prairies, in 2007 he quit his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan to move into a minivan and embark on the life of a full-time troubadour. Since then he's toured almost incessantly across Canada, the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, averaging over 150 shows and a dozen summer festivals a year, all the while distilling his experiences into empathetic, keenly observant verse. His seventh and latest recording Tangle of Souls was recorded in Australia and comes packaged in a cloth-bound, 240-page hardcover book of road stories and ruminations. The album spent two weeks at #1 on Alberta's province-wide community radio network CKUA, and earned Scott his third Canadian Folk Music Award nomination, for English Songwriter of the Year. Its second single "Say Can You See" was the second most-played song of 2020 on Folk Alliance International's folk radio charts, and took top honours for the folk category in both the 2020 UK Songwriting Competition and the 2020 Great American Song Contest. Scott has already completed nine tours of Australia, including talked-about performances at Woodford, Port Fairy, Cobargo, Candelo, Cygnet, Healesville, Mullumbimby, Newstead, Kangaroo Valley, Dorrigo, Maldon, Illawarra, the National, and Yackandandah folk festivals. He’s been back on the road full-time since January of 2022, living in a campervan named Roadetta with his sweetheart Pamela Mae on upright bass and vocals, and this year he’s bringing her for her first visit to Australia.
