Little Joe Cook: "Us music guys are messy"

Written by Camille Dodero for the Boston Phoenix in 2005.


Part 4: ‘Mine’

Little Joe Cook flings open the front door of his Framingham ranch house with a pit bull in his grip and a black cloth knotted around his head like Aunt Jemima’s kerchief. The dog is Fate, a friendly pooch he got from a granddaughter in Philadelphia. Though Fate snuggles with Cook in bed and whines when they’re apart, it was Joanne Cook who chose the dog’s moniker. "It wasn’t me, "Cook huffs. " I wouldn’t name it no Fate!"

In the kitchen, there are stamped envelopes, CD jewel boxes, spiral notebooks, crumpled invitations, paper napkins, unfolded bills, and a dog leash strewn across the table. "My wife gets mad because I mess up the table," he mumbles. "But, you know, us music guys are messy."

Hiding among the clutter is a mimeographed sheet listing the dates of Cook’s 1960 tour with B.B. King. There’s also a page of graphs representing the Billboard chart progressions of songs that start with the letter "P" ; "Peanuts" sits near Elvis’s " Peace in the Valley " and Freddie McCoy’s " Peas ’n’ Rice. " Deeper in the pile is a blue plastic pillbox divided into 28 compartments — a week’s supply of Cook’s medication. The slots labeled bedtime specify 8 to 10 p.m.; many nights, he hasn’t even started his Cantab shift by 10 o’clock.

Cook likes to answer questions with objects. When asked how he’s feeling, Cook says, "Good. I’ve started on a fruit diet. I ate fruit this morning. I ate a banana.” He spies a banana on the counter and points. "See?" He rolls his chair over to the refrigerator, swings open the door, and pulls out a plastic-wrapped container of cantaloupe slices. "And I had, what you call that?" Cantaloupe?" Yeah, I ate that. And a pear. That’s all I ate. "The refrigerator door is still open.

When asked about In God We Trust, his still-in-progress CD submerged in the confusion of his kitchen table, Cook disappears into the cellar and returns with a boom box. On the cover of the disc, his face is superimposed over an American flag. The packaging describes the collection as " a patriotic touch of gospel " ; this means Cook overhauled a couple of old songs and retrofitted them for the current international climate. " Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There "used to be" Say a Prayer for the Boys in Korea" ; the respectful antiwar anthem "Mr. Bush in the White House Chair" is an unintentionally hilarious overhaul of the Jimmy Carter tribute "Mr. Peanut in the White House Chair."

After the record is finished, Cook points to the radio. It’s tuned to WODS Oldies 103.3 and playing Sonny and Cher’s "I Got You Babe. " "They play everybody else’s record but mine," he mopes. "I get royalties from Philadelphia, Tennessee, New York. I don’t know why they don’t play my record here. I listen all the time. I tell some of my fans to call in." ("Fifties music is no longer a focus, "explains WODS-FM programming director Greg Strassell in an e-mail." WODS now features music mostly from 1964-1975.")

Cook’s home is a boxy place with brown shutters, a fusty basement studio, and lots of mirrors. Mirrors line cabinets and cover an entire front-room wall. Where there aren’t mirrors, there are images of the Cook family: graduation photos of 19-year-old Joe Jr., Cook’s son with Joanne; a painting of Cook wearing glasses with peanut-shaped lenses; Joanne’s painted portrait.

Joanne is both the cover model for Cook’s Lady from the Beauty Shop (Beantown International) and the inspiration for the song of the same name. In the dated picture on the record sleeve, she’s a beaming, shiny-faced girl nearly eclipsed by a bouffant perm. She’s obviously much younger than her husband.

"Don’t put her age in there," Cook snaps when asked. She’s younger, right? "Yep," he grunts. "There’s a big difference."

Cook cites his greatest accomplishment as his Apollo appearance. "They told me, ‘Little Joe, you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.’ And they’re right. Apollo was a hard audience to accept you. They’d boo you off in a minute. "He swears he wasn’t nervous." It was just like eating, picking up your fork and stuffing it in. " Back then, he was playing to a different crowd — mostly black folks — and now he’s playing to a gaggle of white college kids. Cook isn’t fazed. "It doesn’t matter," he says. " I’m out there to make some money."