Burke & Blackington Funeral Home

Cook drew all ages and all races into the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. By Steve Morse 20140419040000-- CommentsPrintBy Steve Morse Globe Correspondent 
 April 19, 2014Standing just under 5-foot-4, Little Joe Cook was short in stature, but he had no shortage of confidence. Performing up to five nights a week at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge during a 27-year run that stretched into his mid-80s, he often asked his audience: “Who is the Man?” Then he shouted in no uncertain terms, “I’m the Man!”A galvanizing presence in Cambridge’s Central Square, Mr. Cook drew all ages, all races, and all manner of MIT and Harvard students into the gritty Cantab, a club that was a throwback in time, just as he was.In 1957, he became a classic one-hit wonder in the music business when he wrote and sang the Top-40 hit “Peanuts,” which eventually sold 1 million copies. Mr. Cook, who rode that hit the rest of his career, singing in his high falsetto four sets a night as the Cantab crowds roared their support, died of cancer Tuesday in Oak Knoll Healthcare Center in Framingham. He was 91 and had lived in Framingham.His uncanny sense of showmanship was matched only by his knack for marketing. He not only sang “Peanuts” tirelessly, he promoted it by wearing a peanut ring and necklace. For years he pulled up in front of the Cantab and parked his yellow Cadillac Seville with a hood ornament shaped like a peanut. His license plate? “NUT MAN.” Get Today's Headlines in your inbox: The day's top stories delivered every morning.“I don’t get tired of it because that’s what people pay to see,” Mr. Cook told the Globe in 1998, when he was 75. “They want to see if I can still sing the falsetto in the song. And I love showing them that I still can.” Listen: Little Joe Cook’s musicLittle Joe Cook, whose one big hit, “Peanuts,” helped make him a local music legend, has died. Listen to his music.Long before becoming an icon in Cambridge, Mr. Cook was influential in pioneering high-false... (Boston Globe)