

Each track is a palpable glance back at the heritage of a our shared musical culture, subtly encouraging what will be a vital shift in keeping true artistry alive. With this album, Phil is offering up his claim that the industry labels and genre constraints are rendering themselves irrelevant. Placing focus on the way the tracks make them feel in lieu of searching for superfluous descriptors and categories. Instead, as a collection, they call on listeners to witness and immerse themselves in their own journey. The songs have no prerequisite, no pretension. Southland Mission is a soundtrack of shared experiences and Phil’s purity in leadership is self-evident from the moment the needle hits the record.

It is only recently that Phil Cook’s story has turned from one of a departure, to that of an arrival. It helps them become successful.”- Amy Ray He's never moved into the limelight, but all of these other amazing people learn from him. “ has influenced a lot of musicians that have played with him, and he's influenced a lot of musicians that are pretty successful. Phil Cook has become a conduit of American music. He is a partner and an ally for other musicians, drawing people together through subtle alchemy. He is enthusiastic, steady and humble in his work. He has produced, composed, written for, and recorded on dozens of regional and national releases. Now, over a decade into our stay, Phil has become a staple in the area’s studios. He, along with an incredible collection of creatives in the area, have been finding their sounds and voices within a regional paradigm that shifts and shuffles, ever so slowly, with the passing of each sweltering summer. Appalachia, The Delta, and the Bayou were all calling to him.Īs we settled into the state, Phil slowly began to unravel and wrestle with the region’s own complex dualities. He had just picked up the banjo for the first time and was diving deep into the used gospel bin at the record store. I remember clearly that the majority of arguments Phil had laid out for me when pitching this cross-country move were focused on the artists and music that came from this swath of land.


When we moved to North Carolina from Wisconsin in 2005, a specific era of our adult lives melted in the rearview as we crossed over the Mason Dixon. He is thus filled with a duality of pride and requisite anxiety.
Anybody else lyrics phil cook full#
Today’s listen to the full production signifies that he’s finally achieved the sync of what he’s been hearing in his head for the past few years and what listeners will come to know as his solo debut. The majority of the creative process that went into this album, however, has happened within the walls of my husband’s prodigious mind and in a studio in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I hear them when Phil sings in the car between our otherwise monotonous errand runs, and I hear them as he sings our son to sleep at night. I had heard early versions when they came back from the mountains after being conceived. I’ve heard most of these songs before, or at least fragments of them. Today he is sharing his newly completed solo record with me for the first time. Despite the autumnal perfection surrounding us, I can feel anticipation in my stomach and in Phil’s twitching fingers. This particular trip holds more weight than those that have come before. For every project, album or other piece of music that Phil has created, we find a stretch of open highway, dial the volume knob to max, and drive the listening length of road. This morning’s drive is not unlike ones we’ve taken in the past. We start by setting our course to meander the open road. We’ve dropped our son off at school and are filled with a coveted sense of freedom for the day ahead. Phil is behind the wheel, one hand driving and the other gently holding mine as we turn onto an unmarked country byway. It’s autumn in North Carolina, and the southern sun is casting a golden filter onto the fiery-red dogwood leaves that scatter the roadside landscape.
