Alabama’s Jeff Cook reveals he has Parkinson’s disease

NASHVILLE (WDEF) – Fort Payne native Jeff Cook tells The Tennessean newspaper that he suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

Cook is a founding member, guitarist and fiddle player, for the band Alabama.

He tells the newspaper that he was diagnosed four years ago.

But it has gotten to the point that Cook plans to stop touring with the band at the end of April.

The band will go on without him, saying they will always leave a mike on the stage of every show for him.

And Cook says he isn’t giving up playing entirely.

He hopes to make the date at Orange Beach on May 27th and a fan event in June.

Teddy Gentry and Randy Owen have known about it since he was diagnosed.

And they kept quiet while rumors circulated that their cousin was suffering from substance abuse.

“That’s the part that hurts so bad, for people to think that he’s intoxicated or something,” Owen told The Tennessean

Cook told the paper “I’ve tried not to burden anyone with the details of my condition because I do not want the music to stop or the party to end.”

The cousins started their band in Fort Payne in the late 1970’s.

After years of playing bars and dives, they became “overnight sensations” in country music in 1980.

Their career included 3 Entertainer of the Year awards and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Here is a concert story from our archives in Rainsville, Alabama in 1982.