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"To even be considered in the same category as Marvin Norcross is such a compliment. Marvin was an individual of the highest class who helped further the careers of many gospel singers and groups when he was CEO of Canaan Records. I deeply appreciate the award and to God be the glory," Cook said.
Cook said last week that he didn't consider the award to be only a win for him.
"My feeling is it's a win for the home team, so to speak," he said. "It's not just for me, Martin Cook, it's for my community, people, church, county, our school system and for all those who live and work in this area."
In addition to Cook's award, the Inspirations were honored when their song "I'll Not Turn My Back On Him Now," written by Sandy Knight of Due West, S.C., was named the 2002 Singing News Song of the Year. They have won in that category before for "Jesus Is Coming Soon," "Touring That City" and "Jesus Is Mine."
"I'll Not Turn My Back On Him Now" (from the Inspirations' "Pure Vintage" recording) was a really special song for the group, Cook said.
"It's not only about turning your back on God but on your family and friends - it's about loyalty," Cook said.
Though recorded months before, the song was released about the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and it's message seemed to resonate with listeners, he said.
"We Need To Thank God," a single from the Inspirations' "Highway to Heaven," is currently making its way up the charts.
With a career spanning more than 40 years, Cook's gospel music portfolio is impressive. Led by his efforts, the Inspirations have developed the nation's largest gospel singing festival, the "Singing in the Smokies," which is held in three sessions each year at Inspirations Park on a mountainside near Bryson City.
A lifetime gospel singer and an accomplished pianist, Cook started his music career in 1957 as pianist for the Kingsmen. He also played piano for the Silvertones, a regional quartet, before forming the Inspirations.
Cook helped create one of gospel music's greatest success stories when he invited some of his high school students to his home to sing almost 40 years ago.
The Inspirations "just happened," Cook said. Folks had always gathered at his dad's house on Caney Fork to sing, and after he got married and moved to Bryson City to teach high school, people there did the same, he said.
"The boys in the original group - Archie Watkins, Ronnie Hutchins, Troy Burns and Jack Laws - were the ones who came most often and stayed. It was kind of a natural weeding out," Cook said.
Raised playing piano and singing in church, music was part of life for Cook, who continued to teach school and work summer jobs with the National Park Service during the Inspirations' early years.
"It didn't occur to me that music could be a career," he said.
It was while Cook was working as a ranger at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky that he found the right name for his quartet.
During a service at First Baptist Church in Brownsville, Ky., Cook listened to a preacher from Georgia hold forth on divine inspiration. Before the service was over, Cook had settled on the name "Inspirations" for his young group.
Recognized nationally as one of the best quartet managers and pianists in gospel music, Cook received his early piano training at home and in church. The first time he played for a church service was because the regular pianist (his sister) moved away.
"When she left, it was up to me, and I played. I was the only choice they had," he said.
When the Inspirations took the stage in 1966 in Atlanta at their first big gospel show, the bass singer was 14, the tenor and lead singers were 17, the baritone was 21 and Cook was 29. They brought down the house, according to Asheville Citizen-Times columnist (and Addie native) Bob Terrell, who chronicled the story of the Inspirations in his 1999 book "What a Wonderful Time," titled after the Inspirations' first big hit.
A 1970 segment on the popular television show "60 Minutes" also boosted the Inspirations' meteoric rise, he said.
"That really helped us," Cook said. "We were on CBS news for a solid 7 minutes. People saw it all over the country. (News crews) followed us for a week and condensed it down to 7 minutes. We were the sole subject, too. It wasn't a show about gospel music - it was a show about the Inspirations."
Cook and the "boys" were voted by fans and The Singing News as the favorite gospel group in America in 1972, just eight years after they started singing together. No other gospel group ever "scaled the heights" so quickly, wrote Terrell.
Their success was no accident, Cook said.
"We started spending whole nights working on one song. Maybe we sang once a month in church, but we sang every night at my house. The kind of singing we did was like working a difficult puzzle.
"With a quartet, you have to hit pitch, and you have to take it syllable by syllable so you all say it exactly the same way. And you've got to say it at the same time, if you're going to have harmony.
"You have to work and work and work. You never get it done," Cook said. "Not every group does that, but not every group has been successful for more than 35 years. In order to stay at the top of the demand list, you've got to keep producing."
Cook, who graduated from Western Carolina University, credited his years there as contributing to his success.
"I feel like my experience at WCU is a major factor in my way of doing things," he said. "I had teachers like Dr. (Carl) Killian. I gained from him. He influenced people and made you want to do better.
"That's what I try to do. I try to get the people that work with me to do better," Cook said. "Everybody has a good side and a bad side. My job is to keep the good side turned up."
Cook, 66, was born on Caney Fork only a few hundred yards from where he now lives. He is married to the former Ora Shuler, and they have a daughter, Marcia, and two sons, Michael and Myron, who has played the upright bass with the Inspirations for more than 20 years.
A veteran of the U.S. Army, Cook served 13 months in Korea as an artillery surveyor. He was elected to the Jackson County Board of Education in 1994 and served one term.
The Cooks are active in their home church, Balsam Grove Baptist, and encourage area children to further their education through their sponsorship of the New Century Scholars program.
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Former Jackson County School Board member Martin Cook of Caney Fork community was honored recently with the Marvin Norcross Award, the most prestigious award in Southern gospel music. Cook, a former chemistry teacher, founded the acclaimed Inspirations quartet some 38 years ago and still manages, emcees and plays the piano for the group. The Inspirations also won Song of the Year honors for "I'll Not Turn My Back On Him Now," written by Sandy Knight of Due West, S.C.