Pace grad Amanda Cook and her bluegrass band will play venerable Grand Ole Opry in July

Bluegrass musician Amanda Cook has lived tucked in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountain region of Virginia for about five years now, and you can hear a rural, country twang in her voice, the same high lonesome vocal calling that is tied to the bluegrass sound.

"We live just about a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway," she said. "We're right here nestled in the mountains."

But make no mistake about where the accent on that twang originated.

"Pure Santa Rosa County," said Cook, a 1996 Pace High graduate who moved to Virginia with her husband and high school sweetheart, Dennis Cook. "That's where I spent most of my life."

She'll bring that Santa Rosa accent to country's music's most hallowed venue when the Amanda Cook Band makes its Grand Ole Opry debut on July 7.

"When I first heard, I kept thinking, 'You're going to wake up any moment,'" she said. "I knew I was gonna wake up any moment and it wouldn't be real."

It will be the first Grand Ole Opry performance for any of Cook's band members ‒ Carolyne Van Lierop (harmony, banjo), Josh Faul (upright bass/harmony), Troy Boone (mandolin, harmony), George Mason (fiddle) and Brady Wallen (lead guitar).

"I could not be more proud for the six of us to make that debut together," Cook said. "Carolyne, my banjo player, has been with me for 10 years, pretty much from the beginning."

Cook moved to Virginia at the same time she signed a long-term five album contract with record label Mountain Fever Records, in Willis, Virginia, while also taking a job as an engineer at the label, home to many top and emerging bluegrass acts. Today, she is chief operating officer at the label.

The Amanda Cook Band's fourth studio album, 2022's "Changes," debuted at the No. 1 spot of the Billboard Bluegrass Album chart in October 2022. The band's fifth album, "Restless Soul," will be released this fall, though two singles, including the most recent, "Mitchell Mullins," have been released.

Though her father has been playing music for about 30 years, bluegrass really wasn't Cook's thing growing up.

"You know, I didn't really get into it until after high school," said Cook, who with her husband, has two children, ages 16 and 24. "Bluegrass just wasn't the kind of music kids listened to."

Still, she did like country music and appreciated bluegrass, as well as her father's musical talent. Cook herself played flute in her middle and high school bands, and often sang in local karaoke contests.

"She called me up one time and she said, 'Daddy, I'm going over to Shooterz to be in a singing contest," said her father, Mike Blanton, who plays regularly with the String Farm Band, which performs each Saturday at Palafox Market in downtown Pensacola. "I didn't even know she sang. She went over there and sang Martina McBride's 'Independence Day,' which is a brave, emotional song to sing."

Cook won the contest and by 2007 she was performing with her father in the bluegrass outfit High Cotton, performing throughout the southeast. In 2013, she released her first solo album, "One Stop Along the Road," and soon after formed a touring band. In 2017, the Amanda Cook Band released its debut album, "Deep Water," on Cook's new label, Mountain Fever Records. Throughout her professional career, she has garnered healthy airplay on bluegrass and independent radio stations, as well as strong reviews from publications such as Bluegrass Today and Roots Music Report.

But the Grand Old Opry is a career pinnacle for Clark at this point, a rite of passage for any aspiring bluegrass or country artist from Hank Williams Sr. ‒ from whom the frenzied crowd demanded six encores at his 1949 Opry debut ‒ to Loretta Lynn, who said of her first Opry performance, "I came out the back of the building and I was hollering, ‘I’ve sung on the Grand Ole Opry! I’ve sung on the Grand Ole Opry!’” It is the shrine of country music and since the 1920s it has gone out on the radio to homes nationwide on storied Nashville AM station WSM.

(Reporter note: For the significance of the Grand Ole Opry and a good listing of some of the greats who have performed there, listen to the great bluegrass legend's kicking "Grand Ole Opry Song," which recalls revered legends such as Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl and "Earl Scruggs and his banjo too" and many more.)

"It's a dream come true," Cook said, "You think of all the legends who have stepped foot on that stage."

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Blanton, a proud father, knows what it means. And his daughter knew what it would mean to him when she broke the news by phone not long before her father's recent heart surgery.

"There was a mix of emotions because of the surgery," Cook said. "But I just felt like I needed to tell him, so I did, and he was over the moon." Her father's recovering and hopes to be back with the String Farm Band at the Palafox Market in a few weeks.

On July 7, Blanton plans on being in Nashville watching his daughter performing on the Grand Ole Opry.

"It's really amazing to me and I'm so proud,'' he said. "This is a huge deal and I'll tell you, when I found out, I blasted that out on Facebook as fast as I could. I'm going to be there. I just can't miss that."

Blanton's been around and played forever. Did he ever perform on the Grand Ole Opry stage as a backing musician for anyone?

"Not even close."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Amanda Cook makes Grand Ole Opry debut in July Pace graduate says