Key to the Highway: Elizabeth Cook

Americana Highways’ Key to the Highway series photo by Melissa Clarke

Fans always clamor to learn more about their favorite, most beloved musicians and those who travel with them. There’s such an allure to the road, with its serendipity, inevitable surprises, and sometimes unexpected discomforts. This interview series is a set of questions we are asking some of our favorite roots rock Americana artists to get to know more about them and what they’ve learned and experienced on the road. We are sure they have key insights to share and stories to tell. Here’s one from Elizabeth Cook.

How do you like your coffee or other morning wake-up beverage?

Hot and black

 What’s the most interesting or strangest motel/hotel or place you have stayed (while on the road?)

Theres a lot of wild accommodations out there. Everything from spas to Al Qaeda hold outs. A sweet hotel in Japan, a bed and breakfast in Poland (no wash cloths but great sausage pastry). And all the Best Westerns along the way. I love them all.

 If one CD is stuck in the player in the van for the entire tour, what do you hope it is? And why?

My latest mixes cause I’m always working on that shit.

What’s one personal item you must have with you on your road trip?

Chapstick

What is your relationship with food? How do you handle this on the road, and what’s your favorite dish on the road, (or restaurant, and what do you order there)?

 

I kinda give up on it. You just can’t really control it so its best for me to keep apples and peanut butter to sustain, venues will bring you all that…be okay with being hungry. I like to get any kind of ethnic local food when I can. The whole new internet delivery thing has been great cause you really don’t wanna run around extra while on tour.

 If you could pause your life for a few weeks and spend some time living in a place you only have passed through, which would you choose, and why?

South France because of the light. And the butter.

What quote or piece of advice have you gotten from someone on the road that has really stuck with you?

“Know where you are”. – Dan Baird*

*For an explanation of this quote, see here: Key to the Highway: Dan Baird

Find all things Elizabeth Cook here: https://www.elizabeth-cook.com 

See other Key to the Highway interviews here: https://americanahighways.org/category/interviews/key-to-the-highway-series/ (click here for: Tommy Womack Eric Ambel, Dan Baird, Robbie Fulks, Malcolm Holcombe) Sign up for our weekly newsletter here for your Friday reminder for this series and more: