Sun Media- Cooper Brothers

Cooper Brothers living the dream
By ALLAN WIGNEY -- Sun Media

"My dream," proclaims Les Emerson, "is to put out an album of great, quality music and not play down the fact that we're a bunch of old farts. I'm not going to apologize for our age and experience. I think it's something you should take a bow for."

A quick survey of the faces dotting the tables at the Prescott on this snowy afternoon suggests there are many here who would doubtless be heartened by Emerson's words. Not least among them, Brian and Dick Cooper, brothers enjoying a beverage and sharing with Emerson tales of how these old farts earned their right to take a bow.
And how a dream never dies.

For these brothers Cooper were once, and are once again, better known to locals as eponymous leaders of The Cooper Brothers, a country-rock band big on harmonies that 30 years ago scored a deal with the prestigious Macon, Ga.-based Capricorn Records label, home to southern-rock luminaries The Allman Brothers Band.

The Coopers cut two albums for the label -- and presented them with the enduring radio-staples Rock & Roll Cowboys and The Dream Never Dies -- as well as a third independent release (with long-time supporter Emerson onboard) before calling it quits in 1983. Band members Emerson, Brian Cooper and Terry King continued to play together as a trio until King's death in 1998. But save for a 1986 reunion for a benefit concert, The Cooper Brothers band was no more.
"I used to go and see those guys all the time," Dick Cooper says of his life after The Cooper Brothers. "But I hardly picked up a guitar during those years, to be honest. I'd had it. I'm still not crazy about a lot of it. The music is fun, though."

And it was the music that 16 months ago brought the band together in celebration of a long-overdue Best of The Cooper Brothers CD release. A reunion concert was held in October 2006 at the Prescott, and the results were encouraging enough to spawn a handful of shows last summer and now a high-profile gig at Barrymore's.

"Everybody seems to be excited about us playing again," Dick Cooper says with pride. "You feed off that."

"Plus, it's different when you don't have to make your living at it. There are pretty well no negatives. Back in the day when you were relying on it and you were out on the road playing bars every night, it was rough."

Dick and Brian Cooper tell of playing Toronto on a Thursday, Ottawa Friday and Toronto again Saturday, driving back overnight. Rough. But for the band that had gone from playing local church halls and community centres to touring arenas with Capricorn stars, it was all part of the job.

Emerson, who produced the Coopers' first releases, had been there and back with The Five Man Electrical Band by the time he became a bona fide Cooper Brother in 1981. At the time, The Cooper Brothers had been left stranded by the demise of Capricorn. And Emerson was eking out a living in Los Angeles, following the success of Signs.

"I'd been friends with these guys and I was really struggling down there," Emerson recalls. "These guys called me to ask if I'd come on up and join them and it couldn't have come at a better time. Getting out of L.A. was a wonderful move. It's a terrible place to be going around in circles." Twenty-seven years on, the veterans seated around the table at their favourite watering hole talk only of going forward. Dick Cooper is writing songs again. The CD is selling well. And it's likely The Cooper Brothers will return again this summer.

"We do miss Terry, though," Dick Cooper says. "He would have loved this."

Certainly, he'd be proud. As proud as the Coopers' biggest fan Les Emerson.

"These old boys are still doing it, because they still can," Emerson enthuses. "We're even still doing the songs in the same key, which I think is pretty remarkable.

"Sometimes it hurts, but we're doing it." Still living the dream. Not bad for a bunch of old farts.


~Dick (Richard) Cooper is author of Jukebox by Rain Publishing!