Though never building a large following nor selling many albums, for roughly a decade Dana "Short Order" Cooke was a valued member of the Central New York folk/singer-songwriter community. His quirky, often wry, and always unusual songs, delivered in a relaxed and unassuming manner, charmed a small but devoted following. Solo at first, then for at least five years accompanied by Hanna Richardson, and then most recently with the well-remembered His Band Joe (Joe Cleveland on guitar, banjo, and vocals; John Dancks on upright bass), Cooke appeared on most of the coffeehouse stages and in the other intimate, acoustic-music venues of the region.

And then he faded from view. As late as 2006, fans remember seeing Cooke on one or another local stage, perhaps making just a brief appearance in a larger cabaret or round-robin format. Of late, though, nothing has been heard. Rumored sitings are unsubstantiated. News is sketchy and prone to exaggeration or pure invention. The question goes largely unanswered: Whatever happened to Dana "Short Order" Cooke? Why has he disappeared from the local music scene? Has he relocated? Gone insane? Simply grown weary of the bright lights and constant attention afforded local folk-music luminaries? Or worse?

The Short Order Heritage Society has been created to perpetuate Cooke's legacy — collecting and compiling history of his 10-year career, making sure those recordings that remain are available to the public, maintaining and updating this website in Cooke's honor, and undertaking other projects as they come along (e.g., preparation of recently discovered, "basement-tape" quality recordings of Cooke, known as the Westcott Sessions). As time passes, we at the Society will watch for other opportunities to maximize the memory and availability of one of Central New York's most beloved (if not widely beloved) songwriters. In the meantime, we invite you to read . . .

"Hello. I'm Dana 'Short Order' Cooke, a songwriter, singer, and sometimes buffoon who lives near Syracuse, New York, and who performs in and around that same great metropolis." These were the opening words of Cooke's last website, mounted in 2003. He imagined himself "a songwriter in the mold of Roger Miller, the Roches, and especially Loudon Wainwright III. Nothing is more important than the absurd and ironic," he said.

With this as his creed, Cooke started appearing, humbly enough, at the popular Tuesday night open mic at Syracuse's Happy Endings Cake & Coffeehouse, offering whatever ditty he'd recently devised. Slowly, through the early 1990s, he began to build a reputation for instantly catchy, always distinctive compositions such as "My Father's Bald," "Famous," and "Sky Diver." Soon thereafter, he launched his avocation as a local coffeehouse performer. And then came his first album, Wildman, issued in 1996, and loaded with musical ideas and lyrical inventions of a caliber rarely seen in local music. Thereafter, Cooke adopted mandolinist and harmonizer Hanna Richardson as his performing partner; later, they were joined by bassist John Dancks, and became the Short Order Symphony. The threesome appeared on stages throughout Upstate New York and occasionally beyond.

A second CD, County Fair, appeared in 1998; it was intended to honor Cooke's youth and upbringing in Otsego County, New York, and continued Cooke's catalog of unique, sometimes odd little songs, quaintly melodic and always artfully crafted. In 2000, though, Cooke's mood darkened, performances became rarer, and the Short Order Symphony ceased to exist. Many now see this recession as a harbinger of the songwriter's later disappearance.

In 2001 and 2002, Cooke returned to the stage, with local folk musician Joe Cleveland at his side. Bassist Dancks returned to the fold, and His Band Joe was born (pictured at right). This combo undertook an ambitious performance schedule while Cooke enjoyed one of the most productive writing spells of his career. Within another year, work was under way on Snowball's Chance, Cooke's third and final album. Unlike the previous two, this album was centered around the stage persona, with the full His Band Joe at the center of every track. Here, too, were some of Cooke's best-liked songs: "Cold Day in Hell," "The Way You Look," "Bone," "It's About Freakin' Time," "Empire State," and the eminently bizarre "The Past Gets Bigger Every Day." With the album's appearance, many more performances followed.

And then everything just seemed to peter out. By 2005, gigs were few and far between. Occasionally, Cooke would appear solo or with Cleveland only, offering short sets in lesser venues, often appearing uninspired or, at best, casual and distracted. And then, nothing. For the past year-plus, Cooke has been a nonentity on the local music scene.

What is left behind?

• The three albums
• A track on one of the local Big Mike Christmas albums (available on the recordings page).
• A track on a nationally distributed anthology of baseball songs.
• A few awards — well, nominations, at least (five in all for Syracuse Area Music Awards, three in the best album category and two in the songwriter category), though no actual wins
• The memory of dozens, perhaps hundreds of local performances.

And this website, brought to you through the diligence and dedication of the Short Order Heritage Society. If you have comments, please contact us at shortorder@danacooke.com. Join us in celebrating and preserving the memory of one of Central New York's most distinctive and charming songwriting talents, before time inexorably washes away the final fading chord of Dana "Short Order" Cooke.