Joseph Cook (December 29, 1922 – April 15, 2014), known as Little Joe Cook, was an American

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer of Little Joe & The Thrillers, whose song "Peanuts" reached No. 22 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' Top 100 in 1957.

Life and career

He was born in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south and the Schuylkill River to the west.blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer and his grandmother was a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

preacher.Richie Sarno, ''Little Joe Cook: A Doo-Wop Legend Lives On'', Atomic Magazine, 2002, reprinted at Cantab-Lounge.com
Retrieved 24 January 2013
Retrieved 24 January 2013 By the time he was 12, he and three cousins had formed a

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

vocal quartet, the Evening Stars, who had a one-hour weekly radio show in Philadelphia. Cook was noted for his

falsetto ''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...

singing as well as his personality, and first recorded in 1949. In 1951 the group recorded "Say A Prayer for the Boys In Korea" for

Apex Records Apex Records was a Canadian record label owned by the Compo Company which lasted as late as 1980. Compo established the Apex label in July 1921 in Toronto. It released American recordings from Okeh Records and Gennett Records, among others. It al ...

. He also worked in shipbuilding for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

, and as a delivery driver.Camille Dodero, ''Down at the Cantab'', Boston Phoenix, 27 March 2003
. Retrieved 24 January 2013 In the early 1950s Cook decided to make the transition to secular

music, later declining an offer to join

The Soul Stirrers The Soul Stirrers were an American gospel music group, whose career spans over eighty years. The group was a pioneer in the development of the quartet style of gospel, and a major influence on soul, doo wop, and Motown, some of the secular musi ...

after

Sam Cooke Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer and songwriter. Considered to be a pioneer and one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred ...

left. He formed a new

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

vocal group, the Thrillers, with Farrie Hill (second lead), Richard Frazier (tenor), Donald Burnett (baritone), and Henry Pascal (bass). They won a contract with

OKeh Records Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

in 1956, and their first single, "Do the Slop", was a regional hit in Philadelphia and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The song introduced a new

dance craze ''Dance Craze'' is a 1981 American documentary film about the British 2 Tone music genre. The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness, whom he met during their first US tour. Massot lat ...

, and the group performed at the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...

.Biography by Bruce Eder at Allmusic.com
Retrieved 24 January 2013 The group's second single, "Peanuts", was written by Cook and again featured his falsetto as the lead. Released in 1957, it won the group an appearance on ''

American Bandstand ''American Bandstand'', abbreviated ''AB'', is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the pro ...

'', and rose to No. 22 on the national pop chart, though it failed to make the

R&B chart The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...

. Cook's falsetto singing style was reportedly an influence on singers

Frankie Valli Francesco Stephen Castelluccio (born May 3, 1934), better known by his stage name Frankie Valli, is an American singer, known as the frontman of the Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is known for his unusually powerful lead falsetto voice. ...

, who recorded "Peanuts" with The Four Seasons, and on

Lou Christie Luigi Alfredo Giovanni Sacco (born February 19, 1943), known professionally as Lou Christie, is an American pop and soft rock singer-songwriter known for several hits in the 1960s, including his 1966 US chart-topper "Lightnin' Strikes" and 1969 ...

. Later recordings by the group were less successful, though they continued to release singles on the OKeh label until 1961. After a brief stay with

20th Century Records 20th Century Fox Records (also known as 20th Fox Records and 20th Century Records, or simply 20th Century Fox Film Scores and Fox Records) was a wholly owned subsidiary of film studio 20th Century Fox. The history of the label covers three dis ...

, the group broke up. Cook began performing solo, and toured with B. B. King and

Bobby "Blue" Bland Robert Calvin Bland (born Robert Calvin Brooks; January 27, 1930 – June 23, 2013), known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues singer. Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B. He was descr ...

. He also formed a group,

The Sherrys The Sherrys were an American girl group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, active briefly in the 1960s. The group came together in 1961 around Philadelphia singer Little Joe Cook, former lead singer of The Thrillers; it featured two o ...

, with his daughters, Delthine and Dinell Cook and their friends

Charlotte Butler Charlotte Butler was an English stage actress and singer of the seventeenth century. She may have joined the Duke's Company in the 1670s, but her first definite recorded performance was in Aphra Behn's '' The Revenge'' (1680) The anonymous ''A Sat ...

and Delores "Honey" Wylie. Their record "Pop Pop Pop-Pie" reached No. 25 on the R&B chart in 1962. Cook moved to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in the late 1960s, and continued to perform in clubs. He had a residency at the Cantab Lounge in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, from 1980 until he retired in 2007, being voted the region's Best Local R&B Performer in 2002. Cook became a local icon in Central Square (Cambridge) and he often he parked his yellow '70s Cadillac Seville on Mass Ave with an archetypal gold peanut hood ornament and the vanity plate "Nut Man". Little Joe Cook performed well into his 70s and devoted fans would frequent the Cantab on the weekends to dance to fan favorites including Lady from the Beauty Shop, Hold Up, and Down at the Cantab. Cook died of cancer on April 15, 2014, at the age of 91. He was survived by his wife Joanne and six children.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Little Joe 1922 births 2014 deaths American male singers Musicians from Philadelphia Singers from Pennsylvania Loma Records artists