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Ruralite Cafe: 01/20/00

By Lynn Hotaling


Cook is still making music with his students

 Sylva Herald Associate Editor Lynn Hotaling
When I hit on the idea of writing about Inspirations founder (see related story "Bob Terrell profiles Inspirations' path to success") and Caney Fork resident Martin Cook of Cullowhee, I thought I'd learn about music, life on the road and being on stage.

Instead, I learned about the hard work and dedication Cook and members of his quartet, the Inspirations, have displayed for the past 36 years.

Cook and his gospel group are in the news this week - they're the subject of a new book by Sylva native Bob Terrell.

Titled "What a Wonderful Time" after their breakthrough hit, it was the subtitle that first piqued my interest: "How Four Students and Their Teacher Stormed the Heights of Gospel Music."

Though I had known Cook for years, mostly as a former school board member, and knew he was part of the famed Inspirations quartet of Bryson City, I didn't have any idea the original group was Cook and four of his Swain County students.

The Inspirations, Cook said, just "happened." Folks always gathered at his dad's house on Caney Fork to sing, and after he got married and moved to Bryson City, people there did the same, he said.

"The boys in the original group 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 taught school and worked as a park ranger in the summer during the Inspirations' early years because it hadn't occurred to him that music could be a career.

It was while he was a ranger at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky that he found the right name for his young quartet.

Cook attended First Baptist Church in downtown Brownsville, Ky., one Sunday and listened to a preacher from Georgia hold forth on divine inspiration. Before the service was over, Cook had determined to call his group the Inspirations.

Widely recognized as one of the best quartet managers and pianists in gospel music, Cook's early piano training was at home and in church. The first time he played for church, he said, was after the regular pianist (his sister) moved away. "When she moved away, it was up to me, and I played. I was the only choice they had," he laughed.

When the group took the state for their first big show in Atlanta back in 1966, the bass singer was only 14, the tenor and lead singers were 17 and the baritone was 21. Cook was 29. They brought down the house.

Another event that boosted the Inspirations in their meteoric rise was a segment on the popular show 60 Minutes in 1970.

"That really helped us," Cook said. "We were on CBS news for a solid seven minutes. People saw it all over the country. They followed us for a week and condensed it down to seven minutes. We were the sole subject, too. It wasn't a show about gospel music - it was 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 short years after they started singing together. No other gospel group ever "scaled the heights" so quickly, wrote Terrell in his introduction.

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 30 years. In order to stay at the top of the demand list, you've got to keep producing."

It hasn't been all work, though. While Cook said he couldn't remember the funniest thing that ever happened on stage, he did recollect one highlight: "One time we were closing the program at that college up there in Berea, Ky. It was an a capella number - I believe it was "Amazing Grace. About halfway through it the lights, power, everything went out. Well, we went right on with the song. When we got done, the power was back on, and the audience believed we did it on purpose. There's people who still think that to this day!"

To date, the group has traveled three million miles by bus. All but 500,000 of those miles were in the quartet's first bus, which they bought new in 1971. In some two-and-a-half million miles, that bus was never off the road, Cook said. "It was a miracle, and I give the Lord credit."

When asked about his current role with the Inspirations, Cook said, "I still go every time. I still play, emcee, keep things going on stage. I have for 36 years.

"My main job is running my mouth,' he said. "I talk to people all day long. I try to sell people on the Inspirations. It is a joy to see others enjoy what you're doing. Teaching school is the same way." It really does sound like a wonderful life.

And you can read all about it in Terrell's new book, available in both hardback and softcover, through the Inspirations, P. O. Drawer JJ, Bryson City, N.C. 28713.

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