"Any real and authentic folk-art is in fact timeless, while popular styles are conditionally in a state of permanent changing due to the spirit of times. popular music, by example became a global phenomenon and is by now the strongest influence on the development of public taste. there will be always some interest in so called exotic folk styles, but those art-forms are possibly too individual and even idiosyncratic to become a mass-movement."

Al Cook: The Rebellion of Blues

Al Cook (born Alois Koch) grew up in Vienna, Austria. The visit of the Elvis movie Gold from a hot throat at the age of fifteen awoke in him the desire to make music. He started teaching himself guitar, piano and singing. After first encountering the blues, Al Cook learned instrumental and vocal techniques from historic blues musicians. His idols included vocalists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Son House, Texas Alexander and Robert Johnson. At the beginning of the 70s, Al Cook achieved such a reputation that he was part of the Austrian popular culture until the middle of the decade. At this time he performed in Vienna's Jazzland with blues musicians like Roosevelt Sykes, Johnny Shines, John Jackson, Honeyboy Edwards and Little Brother Montgomery.                          (Photo: Al Cook, born Alois Koch and grew up in Vienna, Austria)

Al Cook influenced many musicians and was partly also an artistic impulse for some of the leading domestic blues musicians like Erik Trauner, Siggi Fassl, Stephan Rausch and Michael Pewny as well as many Austrian scene musicians. From 1983 to 1986, Al Cook used the then Rockabilly Revival to span the arc from blues to rock 'n' roll, giving his popularity an extra boost. In 1989, he finally turned his back on rock 'n' roll to devote all his artistic power to country blues. As an important part of his artistic mission, Al Cook sees his commitment against the growing influence of pop culture on the blues. On November 15, 2014, Al Cook celebrated his 50th anniversary at the Metropol. Al's autobiography book "Kein Platz für Johnny B. Goode: Blues als Rebellion gegen den Zeitgeist" released in 2016. In 2019 released the album  "Take It Off Slowly - Dana Gillespie Meets Al Cook and His Original Al Cook Band".

Interview by Michael Limnios            Archive: Al Cook, 2019 interview @ blues.gr

What do you learn about yourself from the blues and what does the blues mean to you?

AC: When I first started out with music, I was already 19 years old and wanted to become a rock n roll star in the style of Elvis Presley’s SUN record era, but it was that Beatlemaniac replacing the rock and roll craze of the 50s, there was no audience for that kind of music and therefore I had to look for another style which I could identify with accidentally. I came in touch with ancient recordings of rural blues music, and I was captured and decided to use that kinda music as the perfect vehicle for self-expression and taught myself what’s required to become a convincing artist. Blues means life to me and will be the greatest and honest kind of music till the end of time.

How do you think that you have grown as an artist since you first started making music? What has remained the same about your music-making process?

AC: Through intense self-education, I soon came in the status of semi-professionality gaining quickly all the requested abilities on guitar and piano as well as knowledge in vocal technics. By the way, it took some five years to wash out my Viennese background accent by listening carefully to southern black language and talking. I found my ways of artistry already at the time, when I first tried to perform in public. The music extended particularly up to early styles of post war country blues, but basically remained the same to keep myself known as that guy, I have been in nearly 60 years of stage presence.

Why was the Blues never a part of the pop/popular music?

AC: Any real and authentic folk-art is in fact timeless, while popular styles are conditionally in a state of permanent changing due to the spirit of times. Popular music, by example became a global phenomenon and is by now the strongest influence on the development of public taste, there will be always some interest in so called exotic folk styles, but those art-forms are possibly too individual and even idiosyncratic to become a mass-movement.                           (Photo: Al cook & Honeyboy Edwards, Austria 1975)

"Honeyboy Edwards was like Johnny Shines and Homesick James a then still living companion of Robert Johnson but compared with Johnny Shines his performance missed the power, that Johnny could execute at that time, but all three artists told us a lot of stories and tales from the past."

What's the balance in blues music between technique and soul?

AC: I think, that's the same with any art form. Some works need more technique than soul and vice-versa. Especially with the blues, we have some music that in fact requires more soul than mere technique. For example... Son House, the Mississippi bluesman par excellence used in his legendary 1930 recordings repetitive one chord pieces that were fascinating from the first note to the last and never loosing intensity and archaic power. To me it was like to state, that the greatest art is to produce maximum expression by a completely minimalistic technique, the opposite may be the highly sophisticated blues performance of Lonnie Johnson, the omnipresent melodic and gentle tenderness of his cultivated performance is recognized up in higher educated jazz circles, but needless to say, Lonnie Johnson’s soulfulness is equally appreciated. my opinion is... one is within the music or just a student, who is just making music.

Are there any memories from Roosevelt Sykes and Johnny Shines which you’d like to share with us?

AC: Oh yeah...they were just wonderful guys. Roosevelt and me made a wonderful Austrian tour and I remember him as the funniest black musician that tickled the hot ivories. we just made kinda friends from the first night at the Jazzland in Vienna. I knew his individualistic piano-style since I was discovering the early St. louis piano blues of the 20s and 30s. When he arrived in Vienna, in May 1974, he tried to entertain us with "honeysuckle rose" or "sunny side of the street", but Hans Maitner (died 2020), the boogie expert and me convinced him to play his old time downhome stuff and rocked the joint within 15 minutes. Roosevelt provided us with a string of dirty jokes, that nobody but me really understood. He was the living antithesis of the hard drinking deprived bluesman, singing and playing songs of destructive content. I also discussed the problem, regarding white blues interpreters. He smiled and stated: "Even if you're a Chinese you can perform convincing blues music if you feel it, or grew up with the blues. see, I’m from Polynesian descent my skin is copper-colored..." this time with Roosevelt Sykes made me an eternal fan.

Johnny (Shines) was a contemporary close friend to the delta-legend Robert Johnson and played a lot of his numbers. in fact, he liked me and my playing, because I mastered the vintage delta-blues and reminded him of the bygone times of Mississippi hoboeing. Johnny had a loud, penetrating voice, that went right to the bones and I reckon, he was the better Robert Johnson. I also made a tour through our country, and he wanted me for a trip to the delta, which I could not do, because my father was in a wheelchair and died three years later. Both artists were left unirascible impressions on me.

"Blues means life to me and will be the greatest and honest kind of music till the end of time." (Legendary European bluesman Al Cook on stage, Vienna Austria/ Photo by Wolfgang Schweighofer)

What has been the hardest obstacle for you to overcome as a person and as artist and has this helped you become a better blues musician?

AC: Now, to be a person and specially an artist, who simply didn’t swim with the current spirit of popular styles has it always hard to overcome... in a certain sense I can tell that, I had the luck to be the first protagonist that was carried along with the folk-boom of the closing-sixties and the Woodstock movement with it's foible for non-commercial, individualistic artists. Later, the hardest obstacle was the declining interest for vintage music in general. There had been some revivals of 20s-40s and the more interesting 50's styles, but in general all was turning out as a passing fad from starting enthusiasm to manic hype and soon passing through lack of interest... what survives will be pop, classical music and recently cabaret-events. Austrian and the German show-scene prefer rather dialect-pop stars, the rest is however rock and contemporary folk-music. I practice nearly every day to keep myself "in shape", but in three years, I meet my 80th birthday and we'll see, what the future may bring.

Are there any specific memories with Honeyboy Edwards and Little Brother Montgomery that you would like to tell us about?!

AC: Honeyboy Edwards was like Johnny Shines and Homesick James a then still living companion of Robert Johnson but compared with Johnny Shines his performance missed the power, that Johnny could execute at that time, but all three artists told us a lot of stories and tales from the past. For example, blues was in fact the minor part of Roberts repertoire. He liked also to play and perform white country-music as well, but the record companies and their producers wanted black artists to come along with jazz or blues tunes, cause they thought it might sell better. I discussed the death of Robert Johnson, because Honeyboy was a witness, but he could not provide with anything new.

From Little Brother Montgomery, I just can't report any interesting news...only that he told us about some female blues singers he had backed up in the 30s and 40s. I jammed two or three numbers and mostly listen to him playing. I remember the iconic "Vicksburg Blues" and his interesting rendition of Bill Haley’s "Rock Around the Clock", but in all cases, I’m proud to have been with all those fantastic and historical personalities and won’t miss a single minute of the honor these artists from the golden era of jazz and blues granted me. I will always remember them in a loving and respectful way.

Al Cook - Home

(Al Cook / Photo by Brigitte Meduna)