SCOTT COOK & PAMELA MAE
SUNday, 2 March 2025 | DOORS AT 19:00, MUSIC FROM 19:30
We love all the artists who play at Notional Space equally, as one does — except for the ones we love more than anything. We’re not saying Scott and Pamela fall into that latter group, nor are we denying it; we leave it to you to wonder why we mention this. The fact that they are vastly lovely people who, in 2023, gave one of the great live folk performances we’ve ever witnessed may or may not be relevant information for you to consider. Scott describes his songs as “equal part introspection and insurrection”; but we’d add that the songs are tightly, smartly written and performed with a spare, intimate beauty. Are these Albertans touring Scott’s seventh album, Tangle of Souls, or pre-touring their forthcoming work, Troubadourly Yours? That is also for you to decide.
About Scott and Pamela
In 2007, Albertan songwriter Scott Cook quit his job teaching kindergarten in Taiwan and moved into a minivan. He’s made his living as a troubadour ever since, touring almost incessantly across Canada, the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, averaging 120 shows and a dozen summer festivals a year, and releasing seven albums of plainspoken, keenly observant verse along the way. His 2020 collection Tangle of Souls came packaged in a cloth-bound, 240-page hardcover book of road stories and politico-philosophical musings. The album spent two weeks at #1 on Alberta’s province-wide community radio network CKUA, and earned Scott his third Canadian Folk Music Award nomination, for English Songwriter of the Year. Its second single “Say Can You See” was the second most-played song of 2020 on Folk Alliance International’s folk radio charts, and took top honours for the folk category in both the 2020 UK Songwriting Competition and the 2020 Great American Song Contest. Since early 2022 he’s been touring steadily around North America with his sweetheart Pamela Mae on upright bass, banjo and vocals, visiting 45 states and 8 provinces while broadcasting solar-powered livestreams from the back of their campervan Roadetta. In 2025 they’re releasing a new album called Troubadourly Yours with tours of North America, Europe and Australia to follow. Fresh from the open road, these are sturdy, straight-talking songs that see the good in you.
“Scott Cook’s seventh ‘love letter’ to the world is all strings and beauty, a 12-song agnostic endorsement of love over fear… It doesn’t condemn, it summons to one fire… Of all his records this one simply feels the best. ✭✭✭✭✭” –The Edmonton Journal
“Damn, this is a gorgeous album. Scott Cook’s voice –– vocally and lyrically –– is as clear-eyed, optimistic, and straightforward as ever… Tangle of Souls is the medicine we could all use right now.” –Adobe and Teardrops
“He sings his heart and soul, and in doing so lets light flood into your own… He has a good eye for imagery, a gentle human touch, a wry sense of humour, a whole lot of integrity, a warm, rugged voice and a bunch of memorable lines… Truly one of Woody Guthrie’s children.” –RnR Magazine
“You really owe it to yourself to find your way to a Scott Cook and Pamela Mae performance as they continue their epic tour in support of Scott’s seventh album, Tangle of Souls. These are whip-smart, bone-achingly lovely, socially committed songs presented with a bold, elegant directness evoking the very best of the folk music tradition. Last night’s performance in Notional Space was a thing of rare beauty.” -Notional Space (yes, THE Notional Space!)