Legends of Country Music

Starring Ryan Cook

Dinner Theatre /Revue

Dinner Theatre August 10-13, 17-20, 24-27, 2011. 7:00pm

Revue Shows Tuesdays, August 9,16 & 23, 8:00pm

 

Dinner Theatre Tickets $43.25 ($39.00 Groups of 8 or more)

 

Revue Tickets: $27 Regular / $24 Students and Seniors

 

 

 

 

Enjoy the best country music from the last half century.  Performed by the star of 2009's Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan Cook

 

Ryan Cook is a rather unusual suspect in the world of honky-tonk singer/songwriters. Raised in a large dairy farming family in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Cook did just about everything he could to outrun the expected outcome of cowboy culture and country music. In fact, he began screaming in punk rock and death metal garage bands as a teenager and helped shape a popular Yarmouth music scene along with acts like Brian Borcherdt, Paul Murphy (Wintersleep), and Aaron Wallace (Sleepless Nights).

In his early twenties, Cook worked as a student music therapist in a retirement home and took requests to play traditional country music. He began digging up old cassettes and records, and to his amazement, found himself falling in love with the “hayride” era of George Jones, Ray Price and Hank Williams. Several years later, after recording demos of his own songs and showcasing his music across Atlantic Canada, Cook entered the studio with his touring band Sunny Acres and released the award winning debut LP “Hot Times”.

Produced by Scott Ferguson (The Rankin Family) and Ryan Cook, "Hot Times" is a bouncing collection of harlequin characters and slapstick stories, with a brooding undercurrent of grief and discord. Some of Cook’s inspiration can be attributed to obscure performers from the 1950’s and 60’s, such as the vintage sounds of Little Jimmy Dickens humorous novelty songs. While Cook’s Little Doves, Sharpest Knife and …Between The Buried and Me reveal the darker side of small town life, summoning the subtle nuances of Cook’s punk and heavy metal background. “Hot Times” was released on February 29, 2008, with special guest appearances from award-winning bluesman John Campbelljohn, Konrad Pluta, and members of Prince Edward Island’s Nudie and the Turks.

 

 

Jim McRae

 

Jim Started playing drums as his first instrument at an early age with several groups.  He then took up the guitar, and played it in several bands as well mostly for festivals and dances.  He has played the drums, bass guitar, and guitar at various times in church as part of worship teams as well. 
He fell in love with the sound of the pedal steel guitar in the very early nineties, listening to wonderful steel work in songs by Vince Gill, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Conway Twitty, George Jones, and similar artists, so he took up the instrument. Working with Ryan Cook expanded my interests to include artists such as Earnest Tubb, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Buck Owens and the like, covering the older classics. He also credit Ryan for the opportunity of performing with him at the ECMAs in Fredericton a few years back with Sunny Acres, showcasing some of Ryan's original material. 
For Jim, the "Country Legends" and the pedal steel will forever live on... 

 

 

Brad Reid

bradreid.ca


Brad Reid has been working on a budding music career for the past 7 years, since completing the 4-year jazz program at St. FX University in 2002. Although he studied the saxophone first, his interests and the demands placed on him as a working musician led him towards the other woodwinds (flute and clarinet), and also to the fiddle, guitar, and bagpipes associated with his Cape Breton roots.

In the fall of 2002 he started working as a side musician in numerous house bands aboard luxury cruise ships, and in 2008-2009 held a position as musical director on one of these ships. Sailing the seas primarily during the winter months, Brad returns home to Halifax for the vibrant summer music scene.

He has had the opportunity to perform with Joel Mason and his touring Elton John tribute show, Johnny Thunder (formerly of the Drifters), Eddie Holman (“Hey there Lonely Girl”), Australia’s Michael “Banjo” Young, local country artist Rylee Madison, emerging songstress Kim Wempe, along with various other artists, events and venues around the Maritimes. Brad’s versatility of styles and instruments continues to open many doors for him, and led to the recent release or his first traditional Cape Breton fiddle album, “The Conundrum”. He now brings this versatility and experience to the stage for you in “Legends of Country Music”!