Amy Cook

Having grown up in California before settling in Texas, singer/songwriter Amy Cook built her early reputation as a self-reliant independent musician in Los Angeles by issuing her own albums and generating income from songs placed in film and television. Tired of that relentless pace, she eventually headed to the West Texas town of Marfa, where she captured a series of spare, atmosphere-rich originals threaded with cricket and coyote sounds and titled the project The Bunkhouse Recordings. After moving to Austin, she issued The Sky Observer's Guide, an album that impressed Alejandro Escovedo and prompted him to invite her as support on his 2008 Real Animal tour. Escovedo then produced her next release, the widely praised Let the Light In, which included a guest vocal from Patty Griffin, an artist to whom Cook is frequently likened alongside Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow. Once touring commitments eased, she returned to the studio for 2012's Summer Skin, a record that brought together appearances from Griffin, Robert Plant, Ben Kweller, Jonathan Wilson, and Meshell Ndegeocello.