Venerated Journalist and Performer Peter Cooper Has Died
Who sings the song marking the passing of a soul when the person who has died is the one we turn to on such solemn and grave occasions? Who writes the obituary for the man who was responsible for marking the passing of so many greats in country music when he is now the one being eulogized? In these moments, words and songs often fail in the ponderance of a life that if had never graced the Earth, would have left this world an entirely different place.
The song “He Stopped Loving Her Today” sung by George Jones is what we often turn to in country music to mark the passing of a performer. And for many years, the words of Peter Cooper of The Tennessean were the ones we sought out to help encapsulate a life whenever one of our favorite performers passed on. This is the very reasons it is Peter Cooper’s words that reside forever on the tombstone of George Jones, and why they will echo well beyond our own time.
Artist, journalist, performer, singer, songwriter, and historian Peter Cooper didn’t spend most of his life and career in a bright spotlight. His words came through faceless communiques from Nashville about critically important topics in country music, or in the liner notes of albums, the words of books, or the placards of displays. His music was uninterested in commercial application, and came to life in listening rooms and clubs, and through independent releases. His work chronicling the history of country music came in lecture halls and from the bowels of the Country Music Hall of Fame. But their impact was incredibly outsized.
It came to light on December 3rd that Peter Cooper had suffered a fall and a significant head injury—the nature of which we still do not have the full details of. Now it has been revealed that he succumbed to his injuries on December 6th. Making the passing of Peter Cooper that much more devastating is that it’s not at the expiration of a long life. It was a life fulfilled nonetheless, but he leaves us in the middle of moments when it feels like Peter Cooper is the person who’s best suited to fulfill purposes left undone.
It’s hard to know where to start enumerating the contributions of Peter Cooper to country music since they’re so vast. To some he’s known as a singer and songwriter who has released multiple albums, including ones in collaboration with Eric Brace, and another from 2010 called The Lloyd Green Album with legendary steel guitar player Lloyd Green. Cooper was nominated for a Grammy award for co-producing I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, and played bass guitar for Todd Snider on The Tonight Show and The Late Show among other gigs.
But of course many know Peter Cooper from his bylines in country music’s newspaper of record, The Tennessean. He came up in the business as a music journalist. Originally from South Carolina, Cooper attended high school in Washington DC. When he was 15, Peter heard the music of the DC-based progressive bluegrass band The Seldom Scene and fell in love. He wrote his first music review as a senior at Wofford College after attending a Guy Clark show.
Peter Cooper moved to Nashville in 2000 and began writing for The Tennessean, composing columns and news stories that went on to help break artists, define history, and make some history of his own, including being called out by Toby Keith over a misconstrued Kris Kristofferson quote, and defending Taylor Swift in 2010 after her notorious off-key Grammy Awards performance.
Peter Cooper also wrote books, including 1997’s Hub City Music Makers: One Southern Town’s Popular Music History about Spartanburg’s musical legacy. He wrote 2016’s Johnny’s Cash and Charley’s Pride: Lasting Legends and Untold Adventures in Country Music. He also wrote Bill Anderson’s biography Whisperin’ Bill: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music also released in 2016.
As a historian and teacher, Peter Cooper worked as a senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and taught a country music history class. Then in 2014, he was hired by the Country Music Hall of Fame as a senior director, producer and writer. Many of the descriptions you read beside artifacts at the Hall of Fame were written by Cooper. This took Cooper even further out of the spotlight, but his work may have reached its most critical importance. Out of the public eye, Cooper helped keep the storied history of the music we all love alive.
Now it’s left to the rest of us to pick up where Peter Cooper left off: bringing passion to the work of preserving the history of country music as it unfolds in real time, doing it with honesty, objectivity, and with a servant’s heart, and hoping just like his words did, those words and works remain vital well after they were written.
Peter Cooper was 52.
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A celebration of Peter Cooper’s life is being planned for early 2023. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to either the Baker Cooper fund to support Peter’s son’s education, or the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, supporting their cultural organization’s educational mission.
December 7, 2022 @ 11:39 am
Another masterful obituary, Trig. Wish you didn’t have to write them so often. Godspeed, Peter.
December 7, 2022 @ 11:56 am
Beautifully written and describes perfectly why Mr. Cooper was so well respected, admired and loved. Thank you.
December 7, 2022 @ 12:21 pm
Awful news. I took his History of Country Music class at Vanderbilt. He was an incredible teacher with so much passion for country music. His class was my first exposure to a lot of the classic country, and led me to deeper understand the genre. Praying for him in heaven and his family here.
December 7, 2022 @ 12:58 pm
This one hurts. Trigger, this was very well written. Please keep us updated on the celebration of life.
Folks, check out Peter’s music where you stream music. If you want to hear Peter’s mastery of traditional music, check out his appearance on Otis Gibbs’ “Thanks For Giving A Damn” podcast where he recounts the murder of Opry star Stringbean Akeman.
December 7, 2022 @ 2:35 pm
What a loss. I’m heartsick. I also suggest listening to podcasts of his wonderful interviews conducted for the Country Music Hall of Fame. I particularly enjoyed his ones with Emmylou Harris, Sam Bush, and Rosanne Cash. They can be found here: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/explore-history/podcast
December 9, 2022 @ 6:44 am
Thank you, Arlene, for posting the HOF podcast link. I’ve been bingeing episode after episode.The interview with Emmylou Harris is a beautiful example of two gracious, gentle souls having wonderful conversation. Peter Cooper was an extremely gifted interviewer.
December 9, 2022 @ 6:56 am
I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. I agree with you.
December 7, 2022 @ 3:00 pm
This is a gut punch. My brother had him at his school a few years ago talking about music. Peter was gracious and knowledgeable and fielded questions from the students. Country music lost an amazing friend.
December 7, 2022 @ 3:31 pm
RIP PETER COOPER! ???? Super sad to hear about the passing of fellow music journalist and awesome talent Peter Cooper. When I came onto the music journalism scene like a bull in a china shop in 2001, Peter had grabbed the coveted chair at The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville one year earlier in 2000, where the music stars read what you said about them over breakfast. I knew where I wanted to go with my music journalism, yet I had a lot to learn about how to handle myself amongst legends and the inner workings of the music business in general. It was also a time when journalism jobs began to disappear. Craigslist blew up around 2000 and took away a lot of the newspaper and magazine classifieds ad sales with it, while those same publications were trying to find a way to react to the digital age. By the time the economic mess of 2007 and 2008 happened, 15,000 journalists had lost their jobs in less than a year. The point being, that journalists were scrambling to stay afloat and the tensions were high. And yet two great writers, Peter Cooper and Craig Havighurst, and others, treated to me right and were supportive and did not show any negativity towards me at all. Peter was not an influence on my writing style, per se, as I was older and knew what I wanted to do with it, but we agreed on being passionate about digging deep with a great artist and to not let clinical objectivity get in the way of that pursuit, with the goal being to find out what makes the legendary among us tick and then to share that insight with the music-loving world. At the same time, even though Peter was ten years younger, he was way farther along in his career than me, and so I watched how he handled the big time and learned from it. Today, I looked back at the personal messages between Peter and I, and he gladly answered the occasional question I had about an odd situation with a big star, or whatever the deal was at the time. I won the Charlie Lamb Excellence in Music Journalism Award given out by the International Country Music Association and Belmont University in 2010 and Peter won it one year later in 2011, and his win only made the honor more important in my opinion. Peter fell down and hit his head, was in critical condition and yet began to rebound this past week, but ultimately last night the fall killed him at just 52. Life is short, so now is the time to find out what your passion is and act on it, as Peter did, and as I strive to do. While it is hard to get rich as a music journalist, the good thing is that hopefully our best work is around for a long time for people to read, or maybe even be researched hundreds of years from now, and that will certainly be true of the work of Peter Cooper.
January 10, 2023 @ 6:21 pm
Oh my goodness!!!…is it really an homage when the scribe references himself a dozen times, and easily moreso than the subject being memorialized? ????
December 7, 2022 @ 3:55 pm
I did not know Peter Cooper well but knew his work. We ran in the same musical circles in Spartanburg, SC-he on the center, me on the outer periphery. We worked at the old Hillcrest Mall at the same time and when I’d see him at various gigs in far flung locales in subsequent years, we’d reminisce about Corn Dog 7-possibly the worst food court entry ever.
Peter championed what I listened to at a time and in a place where not many folks were listening. He did so with kindness and class, traits that served him well when he moved to Nashville to write for The Tennessean and eventually move to the Country Music Hall of Fame.His prose impacted Americana and Country music in ways that will echo far into the future.
His death earlier today from a head injury sustained in a fall will leave a void in the lives of many. Condolences to his family, his friends, and his fans.
“Keep the aftermath and the epitaph
Give me opening day…”
December 7, 2022 @ 4:08 pm
Very nice and wise words Derek, we all need to get off our rear bumpers and pursue things that are important,and elevate us just like Peter and yourself did.
R I P Peter!
December 7, 2022 @ 6:39 pm
“Now it’s left to the rest of us to pick up where Peter Cooper left off: bringing passion to the work of preserving the history of country music as it unfolds in real time, doing it with honesty, objectivity, and with a servant’s heart, and hoping just like his words did, those words and works remain vital well after they were written.”
♥️
December 7, 2022 @ 10:55 pm
So sad. Thank you for the thoughtful and appropriate words about a man who, as you mentioned, was the one we turned to when one of our country music heroes passed. Prayers for his family.
December 8, 2022 @ 6:39 am
Yeah, this is just so damn sad. I kept checking his Facebook page for updates, hoping that he’d pull through and it seemed that he was improving somewhat. Then, checked again after the comment mentioning a Bill Anderson post on his death and saw the news. He seemed like such a kind, gentle soul.
I’m thinking that he might have went to high school in inside-the-beltway Northern Virginia, like maybe Falls Church? Anyway, something that I share with him is that a move to the DC area was instrumental in developing a love for bluegrass music. Back when he was in high school, the Seldom Scene would have been playing every Thursday at the previous incarnation of The Birchmere (a couple of blocks up Mt. Vernon Ave from where it’s been since ’96). I never made it to a Thursday show, but did see them there a few times on other nights, as well as artists like Tony Rice, John Starling, Doc Watson, Sam Bush, Emmylou’s Nash Ramblers and a very young Alison Krause. I wonder if he was in the audience on some of those nights.
Just a deep loss for country music and it hurts to know he’s not around anymore. My heart goes out to his family and close friends.
December 8, 2022 @ 1:30 pm
Very sad news. Beautiful prose Trig. I once emailed him about a concert review and he replied back and took time to talk music by emotion . A beautiful human and we will sure miss him. Rip brother.
December 9, 2022 @ 2:31 am
Strange that there has been no elaboration as to the circumstances of Mr. Cooper’s demise. Did he fall off a ladder while doing D-I-Y work? Did he crash his bike? Did he fall from a hiking trail? Was he knocked down in a Nashville street crime?
Or (as now seems increasingly more likely) will we soon be getting a Tom T. Hall-style update to the story?
December 9, 2022 @ 5:23 am
Wow that’s a huge assumption. On what do you base your conclusion?
If you have no real facts to back up that contention perhaps for the sake of his family, friends and fans you should consider keeping morbid National Enquirer conjecture to yourself. Speculating about someone’s tragic death without proof is offensive.
December 9, 2022 @ 9:04 am
Trigger, can you moderate the above comment? Thank you.
December 9, 2022 @ 9:54 am
I chose not to moderate this question, because I’ve been receiving lots of these kinds of questions over the last 48 hours, and I wanted to address it publicly (see below).
December 9, 2022 @ 9:51 am
First off, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Peter Cooper died of anything other than a head injury incurred by an accidental fall as has been reported. Speculating that other things might be involved here is not helpful to the family or anyone else at this point.
That said, the way that Peter Cooper’s death was announced, or more accurately, suppressed for a period, has caused great consternation among the public and members of the media. I personally was caught trying to shut down rumors of his death because I thought people were spreading wrong information, when in truth, those people were right, and I was being mislead, because there was an effort to control the news of Peter Cooper’s death, along with multiple missives about how he was improving, and that his injuries were not currently considered life-threatening.
Hindsight is 20/20 in these instances, and I don’t think anyone had any malicious intent. But in the internet age, you’re not going to keep news of the death of someone in the public eye under suppression like it’s 1997.
Also, as the “fourth estate,” it is the job of the media to ask questions whenever someone dies. It is also the responsibility of them to do that respectfully, and reverently, and with patience as opposed to wanting to be first. But it’s also important to ask, “Did a crime occur? What was the manner of death?” just in case foul play or something nefarious was involved.
Again, every indication is that none of that is true in this instance, and I’m sure at some point a more detailed explanation will come out. Let’s be patient. But I also don’t blame people for asking, “Why was this handled so strangely? Are they trying to hide something?” Because for a period, they were. And it wasn’t helpful.
December 10, 2022 @ 8:10 am
Your comments are well taken. But there’s a huge difference between asking the questions that you pose: “Why was this handled so strangely? Are they trying to hide something?” and outright speculating that someone took their own life.
The latter is cruel and irresponsible when there is no evidence to support it. What kind of a person would do that to a grieving family? Respect and sympathy at this sad time is more appropriate than to give voice to unproven theories.
If facts ultimately prove otherwise that would be the time to set the record straight. Wild speculation beforehand does not benefit anyone. Think about a family member reading this heartfelt tribute to their loved one and then seeing a cruel, heartless comment like that. This is a real person with real family and friends that loved them. Why would anyone want to add to their heartbreak and misery?
December 9, 2022 @ 9:15 am
In the hopes of salvaging this foolish comment because it is clear his head injury was an accident (the details of which may be completely uninteresting), Tom T Hall was Peter Cooper’s all time favorite songwriter. He would go on and on about how his direct and matter of fact songs were the most honest things in music. Ten years ago I couldn’t see what he saw as he doesn’t exactly have songs that blow your socks off, but after living and listening to them over the years I can see where his appreciation came from. Every time I hear any TTH song I think of him.
December 9, 2022 @ 6:36 pm
Otis Gibs posted moving memories of his friendship with Peter Cooper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDD-WKzqc1k