Visit Eli Cook’s Site here Acoustic Delta Blues (Fri 28th, 8-11 pm)
Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company – Nelson County, Virginia
More About Eli Cook:
Eli Cook grew up on the blues: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, the Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Mississippi John Hurt. He first picked up the guitar when he was fourteen, and began his own performance career playing vintage blues, gospel shows, and revivals in Nelson County, Virginia when he was fifteen. (Braving the Blues, Lynchburg News and Advance, Jan. 9, 2003, by Theresa Boyd) His first electric trio, The Red House Blues Band, was formed in 2002 while a junior at Monticello Highschool. Eli was called a ‘blues phenomenon’ by reviewers in near-by Charlottesville: “Featuring fast-fingered guitar and a powerful voice beyond his years, Cook doesn’t need any Robert-Johnson-style pact with the devil to take him to the top.” (Eli Cook’s Red House Blues Band, by Matthew Hirst, C’ville Review, 12/10/2003)
In 2004 internationally reknowned blues bassman Steve Riggs joined Eli’s rhythm section, a veteran of the blues circuit who had played and recorded with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Vaughan, and many others, and under whose tutelage Eli recorded Moonshine Mojo, his first full-length recording, which has become a collector’s item today.
The following year Eli returned his attention to classic acoustic blues. Influenced by the songs of R.L.Burnside, Bukka White, and Son House, he recorded Miss Blues’es Child at The Sound of Music Studios In Richmond Virginia in a single autumn day, playing a borrowed 12-string and his own old Gibson, accompanying himself with a kick-drum or a tambourine tied to his boot. Patrick McCrowel, a talented friend from Greene County, stopped by to sing harmony and pick banjo on a few cuts, spontaneous and unrehearsed. Eli called it “…blue, blue, blues;” reviewers called him “…a young gun with an old soul…storming through banged-up slide guitar romps, tackling the storied form with the mean streak of his generation’s metal men.” Independently released in 2005, Miss Blues’es Child was released internationally by Valley Entertainment on the Sledgehammer Blues label in 2007.
Meanwhile, Eli was putting together a new power trio to play and record his original work: a young, wildly talented local drummer, Jordan Marchini, who was playing for the gothic metal band Bella Morte, and a hard-rock/progressive bassist, Eric Yates, who could execute and elaborate on the complex and difficult basslines Eli’s music required. They began performing and recording in January of 2006, and released the finished album, ElectricHolyFireWater, in January 2007. (Nothing to Be Blue About, The Hook, 2007)
By now, Eli’s musical reputation was spreading. His band, christened ElectricHolyFireWater, opened for legendary guitarist Johnny Winter, Room Full of Blues ,and Shemekia Copeland. He chose African percussionist Darrell Rose to perform with him on The Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center, electrifying an audience of 300 with his own special brand of African Rhythm and American Blues, and he opened for B.B. King solo at The Paramount Theatre in February of 2007.
