Mark Cool Music
North Carolina Songwriter and guitar picker Mark Cool has been dubbed “Piedmont Poet Picker” by Rob Ellen of Scotland’s The Medicine Show after hearing his old-time Piedmont folk-blues guitar tunes and self-penned story-songs.
Cool’s songs and delivery are reminiscent of Townes Van Zandt and other twangy singer- songwriters in the Americans genre.
His revivalist guitar playing pays homage to early Piedmont folk-blues players such as Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, and Mississippi John Hurt.
Mark was born and raised in the snow belt, in Syracuse, NY, in the Grassroots-Dandelion Collective.
As a teen, Cool learned fingerstyle guitar from Dana Klipp, an accomplished picker, who was also Elizabeth Cotten’s accompanist.
In his early 20’s the aspiring troubadour followed a Nashville friend to Los Angeles, and spent 10 years there playing in bands, writing songs, and while he was there he also completed a guitar program at the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood.
After moving to North Carolina in the early 2000s, the artist recorded an album with the Folk Stars, including a guest appearance by Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
He did mini tours in the UK and Europe, playing folk clubs, house concerts, pubs a festivals and radio shows.
Americana UK magazine picked his 2007 album “Introducing Mark Cool and the Folk Stars” as one of the top 20 of that year, alongside artists like Wilco, Crowded House, and Peter Case.
“…honesty, integrity, simplicity, humour, understatement, restraint, a ‘joire d’vivre’ that can only be found in folk who know exactly where the bottom and the top can be found, catharsis, realisation…”
This is a rootsy, country, bluesy exposition of the highest order.” -Paul Villers, American UK magazine.
Cool garnered radio airplay across the US and in Europe, and has been featured on NPR’s “The State of Things,” and “Car Talk.”
He is on hiatus from performing and recording, but you can find his music on iTunes, Spotify, CDbaby and elsewhere.
Another review: http://menstuff.org/columns/overboard/cool.html