Frank Lenord Clayman Cook (January 6, 1942 – July 9, 2021) was an American drummer and member of blues bands

Canned Heat Canned Heat is an American band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group is noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists and rock music. It was founded by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob ...

Pacific Gas & Electric The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...

and

Bluesberry Jam Bluesberry Jam was a blues rock band active in the 1960s. They were for a time geographically as well as chronologically similar to Pacific Gas & Electric and Canned Heat. Their musical styles were also similar. They are also notable for the cal ...

. For a time he was also the manager of Pacific Gas & Electric.

Life and career

He was born in

Boyle Heights, Los Angeles Boyle Heights, historically known as Paredón Blanco, is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located east of the Los Angeles River. It is one of the city's most notable and historic Chicano/Mexican-American communities and is known as a ba ...

, and raised in

Brentwood, California Brentwood is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population is 66,854 as of 2022, an increase of 287% from 23,302 at the 2000 census. Brentwood began ...

. He attended University High School. Obituary, Dr. Frank Lenord Clayman-Cook, ''Los Angeles Times'', September 9, 2021
Retrieved October 26, 2021 Studying with

Murray Spivack Murray Spivack (September 6, 1903 – May 8, 1994) was an American audio engineering, sound engineer best known as the sound designer for the 1933 film ''King Kong (1933 film), King Kong''. He won an Academy Awards, Oscar for Academy Award f ...

, he became a drummer in his mid-teens, before studying philosophy at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. Having a background in jazz, Frank Cook was an experienced musician who played with jazz musicians

Charlie Haden Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

and

Elmo Hope St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were ...

. He also had been in collaborations with soul artists such as

Shirley Ellis Shirley Marie O'Garra (stage name Shirley Ellis, married name Shirley Elliston; January 19, 1929 – October 5, 2005) was an American soul music singer and songwriter of West Indian heritage. She is best known for her novelty hits "The Nitty Grit ...

and

Dobie Gray Dobie Gray (born Lawrence Darrow Brown; July 26, 1940 – December 6, 2011) was an American singer and songwriter whose musical career spanned soul, country, pop, and musical theater. His hit songs included " The 'In' Crowd" in 1965 and "Dr ...

. Cook became a member of Canned Heat when he replaced their drummer Ron Holmes. He then became Canned Heat's permanent drummer. He would stay with Canned Heat until being replaced by

Fito de la Parra A unit prefix is a specifier or mnemonic that is prepended to units of measurement to indicate multiples or fractions of the units. Units of various sizes are commonly formed by the use of such prefixes. The prefixes of the metric system, such a ...

. Due to the position vacant in Bluesberry Jam, Cook then became their new drummer. He later became a member of Pacific Gas & Electric. However, he had an interest in managing the band rather than being its drummer. For a time he actually did manage the group. A car accident ended his career as the drummer for Pacific Gas & Electric and he was replaced by Ron Woods. At the time of Pacific Gas & Electric's involvement in

Lawrence Schiller Lawrence Julian Schiller (born December 28, 1936) is an American photojournalist, film producer, director and screenwriter. Career Schiller was born in 1936 in Brooklyn to Jewish parents and grew up outside of San Diego, California. After atten ...

's '' Lexington Experience'' film in 1970, Cook was still their manager. He transcribed the whole film in order to make out that the activities of the band relating to use of illegal substances were actually their lines if there would be any legal problems. In later years Cook became a psychoanalyst in California, studying at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute and the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. He served as president of the Southern California Psychoanalytic Society. He died at home in

Marina del Rey, California Marina del Rey (Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, with an eponymous harbor that is a major boating and water recreation destination of the greater Los Angeles area. The p ...

, on July 9, 2021.Obituary, Dr. Frank Lenord Clayman-Cook, ''The Precis''
Retrieved October 26, 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Frank 1942 births 2021 deaths American jazz drummers Canned Heat members American rock drummers People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles People from Brentwood, Los Angeles People from Marina del Rey, California