Amanda Cook Does It All
Photo By Wes Hobbs – Better Focus Photography
Singer/songwriter Amanda Cook doesn’t simply shine on the creative side as a full-time touring and recording artist. She also has a solid business acumen and knowledge, accompanied by a strong work ethic, that has propelled her to the Chief Operations Officer position at Mountain Fever Records, the home of many top-name bluegrass acts. The wife/mother/bandleader attempts to follow the work/life balance mantra, but she readily admits that is the hardest part of her life. She is able to make it happen with super-human organizational skills and a whopping Post-It notes supply. “I go through thousands of sticky notes a year,” Cook says of her running joke with label head Mark Hodges. “He cannot stand Post-it notes! The budget on Post-it notes for this label is off the chain. At the end of the day, I usually have about 30 or 40 of them stuck to the top of this desk.”
“Amanda is undoubtedly the hardest working woman in bluegrass or any other genre,” Mountain Fever Records CEO Mark Hodges said. “She is a homemaker, a mother, a band leader, a producer and a label head. I’ve never figured out how she can squeeze 30 hours into every day but she does it and she does it well. Her huge heart is obvious as well. She loves and nurtures the artists that she works with and makes them family.”
Thanks to her admitted Type A personality, Cook stays on top of everything efficiently. “I’m up at 5:00 a.m. every day,” Cook says. “Then, I usually start my work day about 7:30, and I make myself log off at 5, so that way I’m cooking supper for the hubby and the kids and I’m able to engage with them and get school papers signed and do all those things. Then, on the weekends, that’s when I try to focus on the band stuff. When we’re not on the road, that’s when I really put the most energy into what I need to do for the Amanda Cook Band.”
That carefully planned scheduling extends to staying on top of her next musical projects. Before her band’s fifth album, Restless Soul, was released last October, she had already started the initial stages of her new album, Love Through Time, which will be released in the summer of 2026. The first single is expected to roll out next month. “Every 18 months we’re in the studio recording a record,” Cook said. “We try not to let too much time lapse from that last album being released to the next getting started.”
Still, when it comes to creativity, the planning and original material can change, which is what happened with this sixth album for Cook’s band. “They’re all great songs, but I had written songs that I didn’t really consider. I mean they had not made the list for me, and then when we went through pre-production, these songs kind of came to life.”
One of the songs Cook had been developing for a long time until her co-writers and band members, Justin Alexander and Troy Boone, helped propel the song forward. “We had already run through the material, and Justin was playing this melody and I looked at him and I said, “Wait a minute.” And I just pulled out my notes and I started singing my lyrics that I had been writing for five years up against this melody. He said, “Let’s work on it.” So, that one moment changed the entire outlook of this record.”
Cook wrote “Love Through Time” about her husband, Dennis Cook. “It’s been a long-running joke with him for all these albums that I’ve done all these breakup songs, and I’ve never done an actual love song.” Married to her high school sweetheart for 28 years, Cook wanted to write a song for the man who has supported her dreams. “When I did that independent release, he took the money out of his 401K to give me the money to do that record, and he didn’t divorce me when I told him I was quitting my job [to pursue music full-time].
“He had no idea that that song existed. When we were in the studio, we had got it recorded and he got to hear it. He said, ‘Wow, a song that’s not about a breakup.’ And I handed him the lyrics, and he looked at me and I said, ‘I wrote this about you.’ It really was a moment.”
In addition to the sentimental value, putting the wraps on writing that song changed the trajectory of the album. “That one song kind of set the tone for the album for me. Not that I’ve ever really checked off boxes, but maybe I unintentionally have, where we have to have a really driving banjo song, or we have to have a gospel song, or we have to have a slow song. I think that song kind of took it to a place where I don’t really have to check off any boxes with this record.”
Cook says the album’s different songs with different themes dovetail nicely together and show the band’s maturity and growth since its inception. “This record is definitely the most different from anything we’ve done, which I know everyone says that, and I feel that way about every project because we grew. As the fans could see and listen, as you go from that first record to that Restless Soul album, there’s a lot of growth that’s happened in those albums. Band-wise, we’ve become even tighter of a unit. I’ve learned so much in these 11 years as a musician, as an artist, as a band leader. I think that’s starting to show. And I think that would probably be the thing that I would say that moment that song was created in that living room, these other songs went with it.”
The Band
Crucial to Amanda Cook’s sound are the remaining five members of her sextet. Banjo player Carolyne Van Lierop-Boone was the first one to get the call when Cook decided to strike out on her own. “Caroline has been playing her whole life. The girl knows every bluegrass song and every gospel song ever done and is an incredible, encyclopedia of bluegrass. I didn’t think that she’d want to jump off into a whole new deal, but she did and it was this instant, chemistry and we are more like sisters really than we are bandmates.”
“It’s been an incredible 11 years with the band—filled with unforgettable music, memories, and plenty of laughter,” Lierop-Boone said. “I’m so grateful for the chance to create and share music alongside my closest friends and some of the finest musicians I know.”
Seasoned fiddler George Mason joined the group a year later. He has played with numerous Opry stars and for a time was the Stage/Musical Director for the Osmond Brothers. “These past 10 years have truly been a musical adventure for me,” Mason said. “It has allowed me to explore my roots in bluegrass music but with the maturity of so much life experience behind me. Of all the bands I’ve toured and worked with over the years, this one feels the most like a family.”
Josh Faul performed upright bass and recorded three albums with Delta Reign before coming on board Cook’s band in 2017. With that quartet as the core, Cook wanted to also add a mandolin player even though she had experience herself. “I was playing mandolin, but I knew that it’s not really what I wanted to do. I don’t know why, but with the mandolin, anytime I would get up to play a break, I would almost have a complete utter meltdown. Just total stage fright. Even though I played with my dad and I’ve done all that, I think the stress and the level that we had then produced these records, it got too much to me.”
Fortunately, the band’s banjo player was married to former Sidelines mandolin player Troy Boone who agreed to the new role. Lastly, in 2019, they hired Aaron “Frosty” Foster to play guitar. “That was such a huge turning point for this band. It just changed the dynamic. We were all close, but when Frosty came into the band, it changed the dynamic, Frosty, immediately, just put this calm over the entire thing. And it was just like, don’t worry, you’re just making music, and I was so stressed about the mandolin and all of that. And Frosty looked at me and he said, “You sing, you play guitar. If that’s what you want to do, that’s what you need to do.”
Unfortunately, Frosty, who was like a beloved family member, passed away in 2021. Brady Wallen filled Frosty’s spot until he decided to pursue his own music path last year. Newcomer Justin Alexander replaced him in October of 2024. “We’ve just been incredibly lucky that we’ve had people that are just really good people, and they’re like family, and we actually love one another. I think that’s what makes our music so easy for us because we love one another and we love working together.”
Late Bluegrass Bloomer
Cook’s life was saturated with bluegrass music from her earliest days in Jay, Florida, following her dad to numerous festivals as he played banjo in multiple bands through her childhood. Cook learned to read music as a flute player in band through her middle and high school years and was a covert singer. “I was musical and did sing my entire life, but no one really knew that,” she recalls. “I never really sang in front of anyone other than really my grandmother. My dad didn’t even know that I sang until I was in my 20s. It was just one of those things I kept to myself, and Dad was really shocked.”
Her singing skills were a surprise to her husband, too. One night after line dancing at a honky tonk in Pensacola, Florida, she returned home and told her half-asleep husband that she planned to enter the Pepsi Colgate Challenge karaoke contest. “He woke up the next morning, and he goes, “Did you say what I think you said?!” I went and did the first round and made it on to the next round, and then the second round went by. My husband came that night, and he was terrified. He was like, “Please don’t do this. You’re going to embarrass yourself. Please don’t do this.”
Cook advanced to the third round, and the whole family watched her earn third place. Inspired by his daughter’s voice, Cook’s dad gave her a mandolin and said let’s start a band. “That was like my training wheels, that’s where I learned about all of it as far as bluegrass music was concerned. I had the education of listening to my dad’s songs all those years, but really when I got in my 20s, that’s when I really got the bluegrass bug and learned how to sing harmony and do all those things.”
In 2007, the band High Cotton started performing with Amanda on mandolin. A few years into it, the upright bass player quit the group on a Tuesday, and they had a gig to play four days later. “Dad went and bought me a bass and said, ‘Learn the set.’ I had to learn all of the music for that weekend and learn to play bass. How I got through that first show with that [little time], it was pretty wild!” She continued on the upright bass during the rest of her time with the group but returned to the mandolin when she started her own band in 2013 to create her unique sound. “I really wanted to try to see if I could do my own thing. As disappointed as Dad was, he’s [now] so thrilled about how that one decision has turned out.”
Transitioning from a sideman in her dad’s band to the leader of her own group wasn’t a difficult one for Cook. She already had several years of leadership experience in other areas of her life including as a longtime Branch Manager at a credit union. “It just kind of came to me naturally to be kind of a leader, but what a learning curve that was learning how to do everything for a band! That first record was a huge learning experience for me because we recorded that record and I hired a producer and did all those things and then did all the distribution on my own, the album cover, pictures, and all of that. It’s like I tell my bands now, ‘That’s the greatest way to learn this business is just to have to do it for yourself.’”
While she observed all the tasks her dad performed as a band leader, she wasn’t taking notes for the future. “I didn’t look at it as a potential business or a career. I was learning, and I love the music. It was really special spending that much time with my dad and traveling with him, and still, to this day, one of my favorite things to do is play bass and sing tenor with the boys.”
Amanda’s debut, One Step Along the Road, met with some radio chart success. “We did that first record, and then, we had three years of really hustling. I hit IBMA wide open that first year as a band. We worked really, really hard, and we played a lot of gigs for 20 bucks. We even busked for a little while from time to time. We did all those things to really get our face out there and then when the deal happened with Mountain Fever, that’s where the rocket took off.”
In 2017, she signed with Mountain Fever Records and released On Deep Water. During her early years, Cook had huge hopes. “I was the girl that was like, ‘Why can’t we get that gig, and why aren’t we doing this [event]?’ I look back at that and think, what was she thinking? Now, we’re gone all the time. You truly have to wait until the time is right for you to be in that spot. There’s still a lot of work that’s been done since that first On Deep Water release to this new one. I tell my new artists when you get a record deal, that’s when really the work starts.” Cook came back a year later to record her album, Point of No Return and signed a seven-year, five-album contract. “Mark is a visionary. He just saw the drive [in me].”
The Other Hats
One of the other hats Cook has worn is her skillful ability to tap into the technical world as a sound engineer and producer. She began on-the-job training through the record company after finishing her second album. “I mentioned to Mark that I was really interested in learning that side of the process and I really enjoyed the production as a producer. I loved working with Aaron [Ramsey] and seeing how he could communicate to me and my band at that point and get out of them the best that he could, just by saying play this on the four or whatever, the way that he communicated with us, and I was really interested in giving it a shot.”
Hodges let her sit in on a session and produce. She found learning the computer part wasn’t too complicated. “It went really smooth, and then was I ate up with it. I dug in and I started reading, and I ended up doing four or five sessions that summer. I was coming back and forth from Virginia to Florida, and the last sessions that I had I was up here for I think four or five weeks.”
Amanda and her husband decided to pack their bags and move to Virginia in 2019 and COVID happened. “It was a total leap of faith, and I worked on some incredible projects. I’ll never forget Junior Sisk and his Junior Sisk Band was scheduled in the studio to record the Load the Wagon album. Mark called and he said, ‘Hey, Aaron’s really sick. He’s gonna have to go home. Can you come over and engineer and produce Junior Sisk’s album?’ And I’m like, ‘What? This is out of my wheelhouse!’ I was so scared engineering for one of my heroes, and Heather Mabe is in there singing, who is one of my favorite singers on the planet. What an incredible experience! Then, to see that record have so much success, it was unreal.”
Despite the incredible experience in the studio, COVID restrictions hit and shut down the industry, leaving the new Virginia transplant without any income. Hodges gave her office work to do, so she learned the business aspect of running a record label. She is now the C.O.O. for Mountain Fever Records. “I handle all of the operations for the label, and I don’t really do that much session work. Last Monday I recorded a vocal. I still do things like that here and there, but I don’t really run full sessions anymore because now I’m running the label. I’m doing everything from scheduling and production and distribution and promotion and social media, all of it. The actual operations of the label and that side of the music business—I love it.”
Amanda is simply grateful that Hodges would take a gamble on her. “Mark Hodges opened a door for me. A lot of people would never have given somebody without any experience and turn them loose in the studio,” Cook says. “The opportunities that he’s afforded me and to now be doing what I’m doing it’s insane! To think that he has trusted me to run his label for him; it’s his baby, and he’s trusted me with it.”
The Face Behind the Voice
After more than a decade and her impressive success, you’d think Amanda Cook would be a more recognizable face in bluegrass music. “When we went down to IBMA for the preview at Chattanooga, several of the people were there that I had been with all day long and they saw “Amanda,” but they didn’t connect “Amanda” with Amanda Cook. As I was talking to them, they would say, ‘Wait a minute! You’re Amanda Cook!’ So, I guess a goal would be to maybe get my face with the voice everybody hears on the radio or whatever. It was so funny, and it really got me tickled.”
To this point in her career, Amanda is thankful for several special occasions. “Playing the Opry together with that group of people was something I never thought would happen. So, it’s hard to think beyond that. Honestly, that’s just the pinnacle of a career. I just want to keep doing what we’re doing, and continue making these great records and booking more gigs, getting to meet people, and continuing to get our face out there.”
