Elizabeth Cook on David Letterman
Elizabeth Cook appeared on David Letterman’s Late Show on CBS on Monday night. Wearing a simple black dress, black boots and a rather large necklace thingy, she wowed Mr. Letterman in a full interview about her family and her career. Letterman said that he had been listening to Ms. Cook’s Apron Strings show on SiriusXM for 5 or 6 months and that he had “taken quite a liking to [her] personality on the radio.”
Letterman then launched off into questions about Ms. Cook’s family background. She’s the 11th of 11 kids, with 5 half-siblings from her dad and 5 half-siblings from her mom. Her dad did three stretches in prison for moonshining, then became a welder, originally to make a better still, but when he became convinced that moonshining was actually illegal, he acquired a mobile welding unit and welded for farmers in central Florida. (As many of us know, her most recent CD is called Welder.)
Ms. Cook sounds a bit country, but she’s smart as they come. Letterman obviously gets a kick out of listening to her. When she said hello at the beginning of the interview, he cracked up. At another point she used the work “incarcerated” and it made him chuckle. It was pretty apparent that he wanted the audience to understand about her intelligence, so he had her tell about her double major in accounting and computer information systems (it wasn’t mentioned, but she graduated from Georgia Southern University in 1996). She also told about the lunch ladies at her high school giving her a $500 scholarship as she went to college against the advice of her parents who didn’t really understand the value of further education, thinking she should become a professional singer right away.
Ms. Cook’s star is shining pretty bright right now in our little corner of the music world as she is a nominee for three Americana Music Awards this year, but the Letterman appearance seems to signal some notice by the wider world of show business. It’s also wider notice for Americana music generally, as Letterman seemed to have some understanding of the notion of alt-country and the distinction between it and mainstream country, as you’ll see if you watch the of her appearance.
Elizabeth Cook’s Apron Strings now comes on at 10 Eastern on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country. It’s worth a subscription all by itself.
For anyone who hasn’t heard Ms. Cook sing (or seen her in a video), here’s the official video for All The Time, one of the songs on her current album, Welder. Enjoy!
You can follow Mando Lines on Twitter @mando_lines, where you’ll note he tweets a lot about Ms. Cook (and other good-looking female alt-country types).