James Cook is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who hails from Portland, OR. On February 28, his first solo album will be available as a 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and from streaming services. The album is called Waiting For The Moon and released under the moniker of Captain’s Audio Project. More about that later.
Waiting For The Moon has its musical roots in traditional folk, blues, and jazz. Moreover, songs on the album celebrate both love and nature, and sometimes a love of nature. An example of a love song to nature is “The River.” Cook tells us, “I wrote that as a love song to the planet. It’s really about the connection we have with water and how water is the lifeblood of the planet. We wouldn’t exist without it. It (water) is the lifeblood of the earth. So for me that song expresses a love of Mother Nature.”
Cook’s connection with nature is profound. “All my life I have been wanting to connect with nature. Even as a little kid and being a Boy Scout going out on camping trips. And all my adult life I have really strived to spend as much time in nature as I can.”
He is an avid kayaker and loves to spend as much time as he can kayaking on lakes and streams. Backpacking into the backcountry is another pursuit he enjoys. “Here in Oregon is a great place to live for that,” Cook says. “If you want to find some open space in Oregon to get away, it’s not hard to do that.”
Continuing the theme of connecting with nature, “Out On The Minam” recalls time spent traveling deep into the scenic wilderness of the Minam River Valley in the Wallowa Mountains of Northeast Oregon. The title track was inspired by an attempt to explore the night sky by telescope. The moon was too bright when he arrived at his destination in California’s Warner Mountains so he sat with his guitar waiting for the moon to go behind a mountain. Thus, a song was born.
“Really Hard To Find” and “There’s No Room” are about how difficult love can be to find. “There have been a couple of instances in my life where I made a connection with someone but it was impossible to come to fruition,” Cook said. “That person lived either in another country or another part of the United States. It was a love that couldn’t happen but I wanted it to happen. Yet, the fact that it couldn’t happen, that it was an unrequited love, made it an inspiration.”
He continues, “‘Really Hard To Find’ is about that desire to have a really great connection with someone but it is just really hard to have it. I know what it is that I want. I want someone to recognize me and to see me, to see my inner child. Someone who has all the qualities I want in a love. But it is just hard to find that.”
Fortunately, Cook has found that person who had been so hard to find and definitely has room for love. “I have a great relationship,” he says. “My partner is amazing. He’s a wonderful artist and a very sensitive human being. I really feel lucky to have found that in my life.”
James Cook attended Art College in San Francisco where he played in several groups in the Bay Area. He later moved to Portland and formed the very popular group known as Trashcan Joe. The band specializes in performing on instruments made out of found objects, including a bass and banjo out of trashcans, thus giving the group its iconic name. Waiting For The Moon is his first solo project. And that is where the moniker The Captain’s Audio Project comes in.
“My name being ‘James Cook,’ a lot of my friends call me Captain, after the British sea captain,” he explained. “So when I started thinking about doing a solo project it turns out ‘James Cook’ is a fairly common name. And I found there is another James Cook who is a songwriter in a similar genre based out of Austin. And ‘audio project’ is sort of the blanket term I use when I do my own recordings. I hadn’t really used it for a release and it’s kind of unique. So there you go! I’ll go with that (Captain’s Audio Project).”
The genesis of the album came from Trashcan Joe bandmate Mike Danner, who realized Cook was a prolific songwriter and needed another outlet for his songs. According to Cook, Danner said, “Why don’t you come into my studio, we’ll set up a couple of microphones. You can sit there and sing and play your guitar and we’ll record it.”
Cook used his 1931 National Tenor Resonator Guitar for the recordings, later using his 100-year-old upright bass to add warmth and depth. Danner added piano, Hammond B-3, and Wurlitzer electric piano. They then brought in Legendary Portland sideman Paul Brainard to put down his trademark stellar pedal steel guitar on several cuts. Finally, the “Paul Brainard Horn Section” of Willy Mathis and Scott Van Schlick put the icing on the musical cake on a couple tracks.
“The whole idea with this record was to have something raw and vulnerable with songs being the forefront of it all,” said Cook. “I’m really proud of the lyrics and I wanted to sing in a way that the lyrics are really understandable.”
The result is an album with great, insightful songs, one that is easy to listen to and does not suffer from overproduction. If you like love songs, if you like nature, give a listen to Waiting For The Moon. You may just find yourself wanting to answer the call of the wild.
