Jeff Cook, guitarist and co-founder of acclaimed country band Alabama, dies

Guitarist Jeff Cook dinner, who co-founded the profitable nation group Alabama and steered it up the charts with such hits as “Tune of the South” and “Dixieland Delight,” has died at 73.

Cook dinner had Parkinson’s illness and disclosed his analysis in 2017. He died Tuesday at his dwelling in Destin, Fla., mentioned Don Murry Grubbs, a consultant for the band.

Tributes poured in from nation stars, together with Travis Tritt, who known as Cook dinner “a fantastic man and one heckuva bass fisherman,” and Charlie Daniels, who tweeted that “Heaven gained one other guitar/fiddle participant right now.”

As a guitarist, fiddle participant and vocalist, Cook dinner — alongside cousins Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry — landed eight No. 1 songs on the nation charts between spring 1980 and summer time 1982, in response to the Nation Music Corridor of Fame. That run included the pop crossover hits “Love In The First Diploma” and “Feels So Proper,” in addition to “Tennessee River” and “Mountain Music.”

“Jeff Cook dinner, and the entire guys in Alabama, had been so beneficiant with knowledge and enjoyable after I obtained to tour with them as a younger artist,” Kenny Chesney mentioned in an announcement. “They confirmed a child in a T-shirt that nation music might be rock, might be actual, might be somebody who seemed like me. Rising up in East Tennessee, that gave me the center to chase this dream.”

The band had a three-year run as CMA Entertainer of the Yr from 1982 to 1985 and earned 5 ACM Awards Entertainer of the Yr trophies from 1981 to 1985. He stopped touring with Alabama in 2018.

Cook dinner recorded a handful of solo initiatives and toured along with his Allstar Goodtime Band. He additionally launched collaborations with Daniels and “Star Trek” star William Shatner. He entered the Nation Music Corridor of Fame in 2005 as a member of Alabama.

His survivors embrace his spouse, Lisa.