Canadian singer-songwriter SCOTT COOK announces new album Troubadourly Yours with latest single “Frankie’s Braids”
Scott Cook couldn’t have picked a better title for his eighth album, Troubadourly Yours, out Aug. 21 via Release Guru. The singer-songwriter, born in West Virginia but raised on the Canadian prairies, has devoted the past two decades to touring the world, playing his music in the spirit of one of his formative influences, Woody Guthrie.
Cook tells his story on the title track to Troubadourly Yours, a nearly seven-minute epic whose torrent of poetry never lets up for a second. This opening salvo is sure to leave every listener breathless—with nine more songs to follow. It also gives the impression that Scott Cook is one of those rare artists who seems as if he could write an album’s worth of brilliant songs after rolling out of bed, and that’s what he basically did for Troubadourly Yours.
“I started up a Patreon in 2021 with just one pay-what-you-can tier, and promised to share a new song every month or pause the payment,” Cook says. “It’s amazing what the monthly deadline’s done for my motivation. I used to write around four songs a year, so it’s tripled my output—I’m coming up on sixty new songs. These ten tracks are all dense, storytelling songs that fit the ‘troubadouring’ theme. The CD and vinyl both have extensive liner notes, but I’m also writing a bigger hardcover book as a companion to it, with a chapter dedicated to each song on the album, and these were the songs that lined up with the bigger story I want to tell.”
Basic tracks for Troubadourly Yours were primarily laid down at radio station CJSR in Cook’s home base, Edmonton, Alberta with engineer Miles Wilkinson (Emmylou Harris, Guy Clark). Many of Cook’s friends from around the world added overdubs, including Australian mandolin player Justin Vilchez, and fiddlers Warren Hood (Lyle Lovett) and John Showman of Toronto’s Lonesome Ace String Band. It’s all part of Cook’s collective creative approach that extends his belief in music’s ability to create connections around this big / small world.
Cook got his first inklings of those global musical connections while working as a kindergarten teacher in Taiwan for six years, before embracing life as a full-time musician in 2007. He draws from that experience again on the second single from Troubadourly Yours, “Frankie’s Braids.” “I went to Taiwan on a whim and ended up falling in love with the country,” Cook says. “That song deals with some heavy topics like gender, conformity, and Canadian residential schools through the story of a favourite student of mine, a four-year-old mama’s boy named Frank.”
Overall, Troubadourly Yours carries forward Cook’s message of love, equality and social justice that has built his global fan base. It’s a safe bet that his new songs will attract many more people who live by the same code.
As Cook says,
“I want my shows to feel like a fire with room for everybody around it. In the beginning, I was mostly just out for kicks, but as time’s gone on, I’ve come to see that this work means more than that, and has to mean more than that if it’s going to be worth doing for the long haul. Songs can open hearts and minds, and I think the world needs more of that.”
Upcoming Shows:
Aug 26 • Saskatoon SK • house concert
Aug 28 • Brandon MB • Lady of the Lake
Aug 29 • Winnipeg MB • Wits End
Aug 30 • Thunder Bay ON • TBA
Aug 31 • Wawa, ON • house concert
Sept 2 • Wilno ON • Morning Glory Farm
Sept 3 • Ottawa ON • TBA
Sept 4 • Kingston ON • TBA
Sept 5 • Toronto ON • Westphalia Way
Sept 5 • Caledon ON • TBA
Sept 9 • Kalamazoo MI • Nine Roses
Sept 11-13 • Remus MI • Wheatland Music Festival
Sept 15 • Appleton WI • Stone Arch Brewpub
Sept 19 • Trempeleau WI • Trempeleau Hotel
Sept 20 • St. Cloud MN • Granite City Folk
Sept 24 • Lincoln NE • Lincoln Association for the Traditional Arts
Sept 25 • Lenexa KS • Green Guitar House
Oct 4 • Austin (Cedar Creek) TX • Arhaven House Concerts
Oct 10 • Wimberley, TX • Occupy Blue Rock closing concert
Oct 11 • New Braunfels TX • New Braunfels House Concerts
Oct 13 • San Antonio TX • John Whipple’s Tunesday Series
Oct 15 • Houston TX • TBA
Oct 16 • Opelousas LA • The Whirlybird
Oct 17 • Montgomery AL • TBA
Oct 23 • Nashville, TN • WMOT’s Finally Fridays at 3rd and Lindsley
Oct 24 • Weaverville NC • Stage 11 House Concerts
Nov 6 • Columbia MD • Concerts at the Cooper’s House
Nov 7 • Darlington MD • Deer Creek Coffeehouse
Nov 8 • Lewes DE • The Listening Booth
Nov 12-13 • Albany NY • Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference
Nov 14 • Brooklyn NY • Voices In the Heights
Nov 15 • Nyack NY • Voices On the River
Nov 21 • Springville NY • Springville Center for the Arts
Dec 3 • Edmonton AB • Prairie Song Folk Club