Amanda Cook: Role Playing With Ease

Photo Credit: Wes Hobbs Better Focus Photography

Amanda Cook works all sides of the music industry, stepping in and out of various roles with ease. She is a talented musician, engineer, and label executive. But in the end, it's all about the music.

Growing up in Pensacola, Fla., Amanda was surrounded by music. "My mom was always playing music – in the car, in the house, and she loved to sing. I listened to strong female singers like Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, and Linda Ronstadt." On the other hand, her dad was a lover of traditional bluegrass. "He always had bluegrass playing in his vehicle. And he always loved to sing – he was in bands throughout my lifetime and performed all over the Southeast." Amanda's formal music training came from playing flute in the marching band at school.

In her early twenties, Amanda decided to participate in a karaoke contest. "My husband begged me not to do it," she laughs. "I did it anyway, and I made it through the rounds. My dad came, and afterwards, he said we needed to start a bluegrass band." Her dad, Mike Blanton, bought Amanda a mandolin and told me to learn how to play it. "I did, and I did the same thing with the bass. It was trial by fire, but I knew all the songs, because I had listened to them in the car with my dad my whole life."

The band was called High Cotton, and it became a learning ground for Amanda. "I learned to sing harmony and about stage presence." The standards, like Flatt and Scruggs, influenced the band. "I remember my dad gave me a copy of the Bluegrass Album Band, and said, 'Here, learn this.'"

Amanda formed The Amanda Cook Band, eleven years ago. She signed a five-album contract with Mountain Fever Records. "My first project with Mountain Fever was On Deep Water. My interest in sound engineering began after recording our second project at Mountain Fever – Point of No Return. Mark Hodges offered me the role of sound engineer-in-training in 2018, and we moved to Virginia in 2019. I began engineering and producing full-time after the move."

Her first project as an engineer was for Sweet Potato Pie, an all-female band from North Carolina. "Then COVID happened. But I came in every day and worked. I learned that I enjoy the production side. I had already produced my own vocals."

Today, she is Mountain Fever's Chief Operating Officer and her band's fifth album, Restless Soul, was released in October 2024. All the singles from the album achieved top ranking play on SiriusXM and made the Bluegrass Today charts. "I think we all have a maturity now, and we like to try things that are out of our comfort zone."

Putting an album together is an art, and Amanda says she thinks about a lot of things when she works on the song list for her albums. "I try to group songs so that there aren't too many slow songs, or too many fast ones. We also look for songs we can make our own – we try not to put things in boxes. I look at the flow from the perspective of the listener."

While she loves to be behind the scenes, Amanda says the 45 minutes she and her band spend on stage are the best. "All the work we have done goes into getting that 45-minute high. The audience's feedback is everything."

Amanda was selected to participate in the 2024 IBMA Leadership Bluegrass program, and she says that being in a room with people from all aspects of the business was a great experience.

"They were all highly professional and very motivated to carry on our genre of music. It was humbling. In the end, I'm a label executive and an artist. I'm nerdy and geeky, and those were my people."