featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
August 16, 2026
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
We're presented with a couple options for this week's breakout review, including an unexpected gem from Pony Bradshaw and an EP marking a big step forward for Hank Heaven. As we've noted, we'll probably loop back around to Bradshaw this Fall. This week's showcase spot belongs to a career-defining collection from a performer who is ready for her roses.
IF YOU ONLY LiSTEN to ONE RECORD THiS WEEK
After years of dancing around her potential, Elizabeth Cook has landed with Great Television (Agent Love). Never short on talent or songwriting chops, and collaborating with respected producers like Butch Walker and Don Was, the East Nashville artist has earned her reputation on very good projects like 2007's Balls and 2016's fiery Exodus Of Venus. Turns out it was a smart decision to await her turn with Shooter Jennings, who embraces Cook's solid songs with full, contemporary arrangements for the best-sounding record of her career.
On Great Television, Elizabeth Cook is smartly supported by her touring band, featuring the valuable Andrew Leahey on guitar, as well as bassist Phil Anthony and John Venezia on drums. Past albums have proven her proficiency with all shades of country, from honky-tonk to gospel. Most songs here lean into a country-rock pocket, allowing room for shades of blues and soul. Cook's collaboration with Turnpike Troubadours' Evan Felker, "Razorwire Wall", charges into a Petty-inspired guitar hook as it tells the story of a woman dropping her moonshining husband off for his prison appointment. "Caledonia and the Love Convoy" is another good-natured roadsong, detouring into familiar blues territory. Cook and her outfit even find an original angle covering the Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown", flipping its perspective and bending it a'la Nancy Sinatra.
Elizabeth Cook's facecard is her songwriting, particularly her penchant for championing unsung voices from the margins. "Girls Of Atomic City" and "Thiokol Tripwire" build on accounts of women exploited in the workplace, teasing a rousing chorus from the ashes of history. A duet with Wynonna, "Easy Kind" names names like Britney, Courtney, and Whitney to call out outsized expectations and a lack of support for young women in music. Jennings stirs the drama with a choral backing. Where past efforts have found Cook likened to everyone from John Prine to her friend Todd Snider, she defines her own territory on Great Television, clever but never silly, strongly opinionated without being a sassy stereotype.
The story of Elizabeth Cook (as fictionalized in the new Easy Kind series) tells of a phenomenally talented artist who has become a fixture on the Opry stage but who has yet to achieve her potential. Fact is, Great Television is too good for mainstream success. We've gushed aplenty here about "Sunset Promenade", the LP's opener that sets female friendship to one of the year's best melodies. While "Easy Kind" merits breakout attention in its own right, "Sunset Promenade" deserves to be in the conversation for the song of the year. It's the crowning achievement of a collection that leaves no doubt about the artist's uncommon, even generational talent.
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