The first I heard of/saw Cook E Jarr was at Bally’s AC around 81-82 For those who don’t remember until 1983 you could drink and gamble at 18 in Atlantic City. I was a high school student in the early 80’s and made frequent trips to AC taking friends for cash and gas money. Many late nights and early mornings spent driving back to Central PA as the only sober guy and actually heading to school before the first bell.

Anyways Cook E was much younger, finding his way after his recording career didn’t take off and did a show at a lounge, maybe the later Blue Martini and we sat there and watched him drinking beers between Blackjack sessions. I didn’t really think much of it until the 90’s when I found him in Vegas and thought “This is the guy I saw in high school”. I became a fan and watched his act over the years and travels around Vegas. The crowds got older as I did and in the end, like Big Elvis, it’s a mostly 60+ crowd.

As RED said, his last gig was at Napoleon’s at Paris for a few years. Known mostly for its dueling piano show, they brought Cook E in to do a Monday night 6-8 show. Druff touched on that it may have been a favor to him as he was definitely slowing down by this point and the crowds weren’t exactly big. His voice was going and it was basically a glorified karaoke session but the man still had it as an entertainer, never taking himself too seriously.

I’m glad I got to see him one last time and occasionally wondered how he was doing. He did have a guy running a FB fan page that occasionally posted updates on him but it was vague and more memories than anything.

Here’s another video from Paris for those who are interested.