{"id":374965,"date":"2026-07-16T02:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/374965\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T02:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:41:23","slug":"elizabeth-cook-aint-no-easy-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/374965\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Cook Ain’t No Easy Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outlaw country\u00a0favorite\u00a0Elizabeth Cook<\/a>\u00a0has taken\u00a0her life story and journey as an artist from song to the big screen. \u00a0Cook stars in the recently released\u00a0film\u00a0The Easy Kind<\/a>,\u00a0a film by Katy Chevigny<\/a>, revolving around Cook\u2019s life blending truth and a little fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0am in the\u00a0film\u00a0and the film is around\u00a0me\u00a0but other people made the film,\u201d says Cook adding, \u201cIt\u00a0was\u00a0a\u00a0labor of love for lots of people.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Easy Kind\u00a0premiered last month and will be shown at the River Oaks Theatre<\/a> where Cook\u00a0will be on hand for a Q&A and short performance following the film. \u00a0The event will take place on Wednesday, July 15.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chevigny, an\u00a0accomplished\u00a0documentary filmmaker, began the project as a documentary about Cook and her\u00a0fascinating life\u00a0and career, a naturally interesting story for audiences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born in Wildwood, Florida, Cook was the youngest of 12 children. \u00a0Her parents were both musicians and performers with her mother playing mandolin and guitar. Her father played upright bass, a skill he gained while serving time for moonshining.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a small child,\u00a0Cook\u00a0already was\u00a0performing on stage with her parents at the age of\u00a04 and by\u00a09\u00a0she had formed her own band. \u00a0Though her family believed she could launch straight to stardom, Cook attended Georgia\u00a0Southern\u00a0University\u00a0where she received a double major in accounting and computer information systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1996,\u00a0Cook\u00a0shifted\u00a0from working as an accountant\u00a0to\u00a0securing a deal as a songwriter for a\u00a0publishing house in Nashville\u00a0leading to her debut The Blue Album, released in 2000.\u00a0After gaining mainstream attention, Cook quickly realized the disconnect between\u00a0the artist she wanted to be and what major labels expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I\u00a0wasn\u2019t aware of an indie music scene much or that people toured that weren\u2019t necessarily on country music award shows but had amazing careers like John Prine or Nancy\u00a0Griffith\u00a0so I\u00a0wasn\u2019t aware of that layer of existence that could happen.\u00a0I\u00a0thought that you had to get these big holy grail deals in order just to do it so\u00a0I\u00a0was focused on achieving those deals and\u00a0I\u00a0did achieve those deals but then once\u00a0I\u00a0got into them how\u00a0I\u00a0was growing and developing artistically was not really what they did.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fighting to\u00a0remain her true\u00a0self led her to leaving Warner Bros. Records and\u00a0releasing music and performing on her own terms. Cook\u00a0is about to release her eighth album, Great Television,\u00a0produced by Shooter Jennings,\u00a0and has been hosting her acclaimed show Elizabeth Cook\u2019s Apron\u00a0Strings<\/a> on the SiriusXM Outlaw Country station since 2011.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA core characteristic I think that was distilled in me when I was younger was that we didn\u2019t have a lot of money or a lot of things or even particularly a nice house or anything like that but we took a lot of pride in trying to be authentic and good people and we were prideful in that sense and so that sort of emboldened me to stay true to who I am and who I want to be.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of this made her life a natural choice for a documentary film but somewhere during the\u00a0filming\u00a0process,\u00a0the\u00a0idea\u00a0shifted\u00a0to becoming a partially fictional film with actors, including Cook playing herself.\u00a0Cook describes the narrative scenes as moments that are \u201cTruth adjacent to be explored and with a layer of protection.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically,\u00a0Katy\u00a0would have an idea for a scene that she wanted to inject into the\u00a0script\u00a0and she would send me the dialogue for that scene and\u00a0I\u00a0would rewrite that dialog to\u00a0accomplishthe same thing\u00a0but, in my voice.\u00a0That\u00a0way\u00a0the same person that is talking in\u00a0the documentary footage is talking in the scripted scene,\u201d says Cook.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The film\u00a0contrasts\u00a0the quiet solitude of writing at home with the intense preparation required before stepping onstage. Scenes of Cook finally receiving the green light to perform \u201cBalls\u201d at the Grand Ole Opry alongside moments of her applying her own makeup before the show, reveal the steady energy building before each performance. <\/p>\n

The Easy Kind took on a rare approach to telling Cook\u2019s story blending facts with fiction\u00a0and just like everything Cook has fought for,\u00a0maintains\u00a0her authenticity,\u00a0\u201cIt really is amazing,\u201d says Cook of the final product.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0really proud\u00a0of\u00a0it and\u00a0just feel lucky to be part of something that feels so original and truly creative in real time and what a luxury it was to get to do that.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0nothing more joyful and\u00a0validating\u00a0and fulfilling\u00a0than creating\u00a0with\u00a0your friends.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Easy Kind has been years in the making for Cook,\u00a0Chevigny\u00a0and their team with Cook describing the many challenges to completing the film such as COVID and family emergencies forcing them to stop production at times.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to push it across the finish line,\u00a0which was a very hard thing to do.\u00a0I\u00a0think there\u00a0were times where it almost became a\u00a0plight,\u00a0and this sense of determination and\u00a0mind over\u00a0matter.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t make sense that we would be able to finish this film but we are going to because we have been challenged by the universe and we are going to meet that challenge and do it and we both adopted that\u00a0fierceness\u00a0about it and that is what has gotten us to this point and able to come to\u00a0Houston.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Cook will be part of the screening, performance and Q&A following the showing of The Easy Kind on Wednesday, July 15, 7:30 p.m at The River Oaks Theatre, 2009 W. Gray. For more information visit theriveroakstheatre.com<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outlaw country\u00a0favorite\u00a0Elizabeth Cook\u00a0has taken\u00a0her life story and journey as an artist from song to the big screen. \u00a0Cook…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[132629,226,56,58,57,132630,132631],"class_list":["post-374965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-elizabeth-cook","tag-homepage","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-the-easy-kind","tag-the-river-oaks-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}