Jacksonville Music Jam Grande Finale

This is Grant Cook & Friends with Richard Raines & Richard Callahan.

Jacksonville Music Jam -Festival

This blog only let me upload 5 pictures :(

There was a great group of musicians sharing the stage that evening.

Not pictured is Todd Henry, Jason Blann, Rob Chaffin, Jay Johnson,

Marty Arbter, Donny Hyles and last but not least Brett Brookshire.

Grant & Steve gettin' down

Grant & Richard Raines pickin' & a grinnin'

Grant Cook, Richard Callahan & Richard Raines

Bassist Greg Cagle & Richard Callahan "NuTatuu" Bret Brookshire on drums not in picture.

Sean Fuller on Sax

New Years Eve Ball

New Years Eve was a Blast! The event had many great sponsors to help raise

money for the American Cancer Society.

The packed TASCA building never got tired of us keeping them on the dance floor.

Thank you East Texas for all your support.

Grant Cook & Friends - 2007

Open Mic Friends'

Did ZZ Top get a haircutt?????

Cool shot of Rusty beating his skins :)

Dave & Todd showing how to entertain!

Shelton Hall, Old Town Palestine.

We want to thank "J.J." for having us

back at the event hall. We had a blast as usual.

http://www.oldtownpalestine.com/oldtownpalestine/index.asp

We'll be seeing ya'll again really soon!!!!

Open Mic "Down Under".

Monday night Open Mic at

Down Under Pub & Grub.

http://www.downunderpub.com/tyler/index.html

George Faber with a long list fo friends

Daniel rocked the house

Tritheory put on a show

Delano played guitar and sang

And ended up on the drums with Angelo.

Thanks everyone for making

this jam a great one!

Mardi Gras 2006

Mardi Gras in Jefferson, Tx.
was a blast as usual.

Sean and I played once again at
the historic Jefferson Hotel.

We literally played all day and night
and the crowd was wonderful.

A special thanks to the Lakey family and everyone for supporting us again

for my 8th year at this event.

For more information go to http://historicjeffersonhotel.com/

Open Mic Dawg's

(Left to right)
Grant, Rusty and Steve pose for a moment after another great Open Mic Night at

1/2 Moon Grill & Saloon. http://www.halfmoongrill.com/

These fellows have also been asked to host the stage for the

Texas Guitar Festival. http://www.texasguitarfestival.com/

LET"S JAM!!!!!

East Texas musicians helping a friend.

Here are some East Texas musicians that participated

in helping raise some money for a fellow musician and his family.

We are missing a couple of faces in this photo :(

Thanks you again for your support and you are all

welcome back to "The Hide-A-Way" anytime.

The Cd of this event will be avaliable before Christmas!

Good Shot!!!!!!

If you sit close to the stage you may want to wear safety glasses.

You never know where a pick will end up when one is thrown from the stage :)

For more places that Grant's pick's have ended up

go to http://findgrantspick.blogspot.com/

IRONY

So, this fellow walks up to me on my first break and asked if he could propose to his girlfriend during my next set. Of course I said o.k.!

I guess my fashionable T-Shirt really set a mood that evening......
.......It Say's "I SEE DRUNK PEOPLE"




I handed him a beer "pull-top" and he stuck it on her finger.
Maybe I'll wear that shirt when I play at their wedding :)?

Thursday Nights "Open Mic"

"We all play in separate bands together !"

These pic's taken of the "LAST MUSICIANS STANDING" ....

..........almost!
Some of the rowdy musicians that support the Thursday night "Open Mic" Jam

at the 1/2 Moon Saloon & Grill.

"Thank you" to everyone that is supporting the live music scene :)

Let's keep the momentum going!

Reggae make me happy mon

Now it's time for a little Island music!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grilled Bat :(not a recipe):

On my way home from a gig in, this winged marsupial decided to chase a bug that was chasing my headlights and.......well, you know what happened.

Thank goodness I wasn't on my motorcycle :)

How much closer?????

Click to enlarge

This is not an altered photo. This is our "crazy buddy" flying behind the stage.
I finally got a snapshot off in time to catch him in action.

He had just flown upside down above us and looped

a downward decent at a HIGH rate of speed.........

......Tipping his wings vertical between the boat dock lights

that are only on 8 ft poles.

What a rushhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Where does that music come from????

When performing with my backing tracks, there is a lot of work that goes into each and every song. I start by writing the music for drums and bass, then record them and mix them together. There is no computers or magic involved....Just hard work.

I start by writing the music for the Bass, drums and any other instrument to be recorded. (Top Picture)
I record the drums first then record the bass back over the drums again, usually singing my harmonies. Keyboard is added last and sparingly. (middle picture)

I prefer just bass & drums so the music sounds more "LIVE".
When I'm done with the track/song, I record it into my main computer and then send a copy of the song to my Laptop computer that plays the music at my shows.
There are a lot easier ways with today's technology, but I don't want my music to sound too "canned", so I prefer the hands-on approach.
I hope I have not board anyone to death yet, but I have been asked a million times and I thought I'd share what my music preparations consist of.
I now have about 300 backing tracks!!!!!
See ya' at the show!!!

Buzzing the stage

It's not unusual for our Buddy Chris to crank up his Bi-plane on a Sunday and BUZZZ the stage at Cedar Isle during our performance. Unfortunately, it's difficult to capture him on a digital camera because he comes by us sooo close and sooo fast that the delay in the "snap" misses him completely. I was lucky enough to catch him after a rapid decent about 15 feet off the water, racing toward us, over the back of the stage to tip completely 180* vertical just before he flew away upside down and did two loops as we played "Fly like an Eagle". He showed up later and shared a beverage with us ...Much needed.
Click on the image and you can see the plane better.


Now THAT'S Entertainment :)

Fat Jack's - Texarkana, AR

Right on State Line Ave. is a fun hangout with a rustic patio for us rowdy folks!

We do our thing in the 97 degree night ..........

In spite of the heat we get the place jumpin'.....they still dance :)

These road gigs are long and hard work.....
I do the driving and Sean does the sleeping.
That's the best way for him to get over his hangover 'cauz we got to get home for another gig.

Thank's Monica for taking those live photo's.

A Sunday at Cedar Isle

Embedded in the middle of Cedar Creek Lake is a Restaurant/club by the name of Cedar Isle. Sean and I entertain the patio every Sunday evening.

This patio really captures the feeling of a tropical bar, from the huge banana trees to the Baja Bar's thatch roof. Sean and I play quite a bit of our Reggae and other island songs.

The stage is over the water and we face the huge tri-level patio.

Hang out for a while and hear some "Surf Guitar".

As the sun goes down, the natives get more restless and the patio gets a good "rockin"

This is the perfect place to finish off your weekend.

Unfortunately, they do not have a website, so you have to call them for directions 903-432-2220 or email Grant Cook @ grant@grantcook.com

Hwy 334 Seven Points, Tx

Woo Nelly

Just across the state line is the perfect "cantina".
Sean and I perform on the patio at NELLY's.





Here's a picture of Sean playing his Sax. I could only hold the camera above his head to snap a quick shot of the patio.

Can you find his bald spot? I guess the rogaine is working pretty well huh?

This is a great cantina that everyone needs to check out.


The food is awesome and the famous "Wooo Nelly" margaritta is the perfect topping.
Even though the temperature was 96 at 8:30, the water misters cooled everyone down quite well. It's unfortunate that the moisture makes my hair frizzzzzz :)

By the way, the heat did not stop anyone from dancing :)

You can got to www.nellys.com and check out the menu, calendar and a map.

New Addition to the Band!

My first Grandson Zachary, will be doing my bookings as he learns to play guitar.
He wanted to be my guitar tech/driver, but he sleeps to much right now to meet my mileage quota for the position.
I also need time to explain to him why Grandpa's G string breaks when he plays too hard.
Notice Grandpa's pick in his hand already.

Call him now for bookings at 1-800-EGG-ZACHARY
and we'll stroll on over for some tunes!

Let's ROCK & ROLL............

Calm before the storm

This is what I saw when I pulled up at the gig.

I'm glad I had my camera with me for that picture.

I was able to get my truck unloaded into the club before the storm hit. It was a close call and I would have hated to get my hair wet :)

The weather didn't seem to slow anybody down as we had a full dance floor almost all night long, right up to the very last note.

Sometimes we tend to overlook moments like this and I'm doing my best to stop and smell the roses more often. I did trip over some roses looking for that pot of gold :)

Does that count?????

Welcome to Grant's gig Blog

This blog is new to me and I'll try to keep current pictures and events posted

I keep my digital camera with me at most o fthe shows and love to catch people throwing caution to the wind.

If you send me photo's from some of my shows I'll pick some good ones and share them with everyone else.

I hope everyone will visit the site to find out a little more personal side of what is going on in our corner of the world.

Mardi Gras 2005

For the last 7 years I have been preforming at the Festival in Jefferson, Tx.
It is one of my favorite annual events that I take part. It's no wonder the event draws people back year after year as it is just a great event.
There is a main stage for entertainment and always great bands performing, but my place is inside the Jefferson Hotel at Lamachi's Italian Restaurant. I perform with my Sax player, Sean Fuller.




We see many new faces each year but the pleasure is the returning friends and fan base that makes it worth our while.

We look forward to seeing everyone again next year.

Grant Cook

www.grantcook.com/musichome.html