His group had 32 No. 1 country singles, and his guitar and fiddle playing helped extend its reach to a generation raised on rock ’n’ roll.
Jeff Cook, a founding member of Alabama, one of the most popular and influential bands in the history of country music, died on Monday at his home in Destin, Fla. He was 73.
The group’s longtime manager, Tony Conway, said the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Alabama had 32 chart-topping country singles between 1980 and 1993, including encomiums to rural pride like “Tennessee River”and “Mountain Music.” The group’s soul-inflected ballads “Take Me Down” and “Love in the First Degree” not only topped the country chart but crossed over to the pop Top 20 as well.
Mr. Cook and his cousin Teddy Gentry sang harmonies, while another cousin, Randy Owen, sang lead. All three men had a hand in writing the band’s material.
As the group’s lead guitarist and fiddle player, Mr. Cook brought a Southern-rock bravado to Alabama’s often middle-of-the-road approach, helping to extend the group’s reach beyond country’s core audience to a new generation of listeners raised largely on rock ’n’ roll.
Mr. Cook’s main influence as a guitarist was James Burton, who made muscular, twanging contributions to the bands of Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley and Gram Parsons. Mr. Cook’s sympathetic fills on the likes of “Feels So Right,” a No. 1 single and pop crossover hit from 1981, were inspired by late-’60s country-soul.
In contrast to country vocal ensembles like the Statler Brothers and the Oak Ridge Boys, who were backed by professional musicians in the studio or on the road, Alabama was, like many rock groups, a band in its own right. Besides Mr. Cook, who occasionally played piano as well as fiddle and guitar, Mr. Gentry was the group’s bassist, while Mr. Owen played rhythm guitar and Mark Herndon played drums………