HE’S GOT AN EAR FOR THIS
Country star sings at Hub hospital that treated him
Country music star Clay Cook spent some time yesterday morning entertaining young patients at Mass. Eye and Ear, the hospital that just months ago saved the hearing in his right ear.
“I went to my ENT in Georgia in January and I said, ‘It’s really clogged in this right ear,” the Zac Brown Band guitarist and vocalist said.
“He said, ‘Well I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is you don’t have any wax in that right ear. The bad news is you have a cholesteatoma.”
Cholesteatoma is an abnormal growth behind the ear drum which, if left untreated, can result in permanent hearing loss.
“I told my boss, Zac, and he told me, ‘You need to go to the best in the world,’” Cook said, adding the band’s managers reached out separately to four different teaching hospitals for a referral.
“They all independently said Mike McKenna at Mass. Eye and Ear,” he said.
“There was no other place to go, I had to come to Boston.”
McKenna performed surgery on Cook earlier this year. The singer spent a night recovering in the hospital and slept in the pediatric ward when there were no other beds available.
Cook said his hearing won’t be fully restored for another six to nine months, but he’s been well enough to perform with the Grammy-award winning band and tour overseas.
“I can’t tell you how nervous I was before, I can’t tell you how nervous I was after (the surgery),” Cook said. “I can play, I can sing, it’s amazing … because of these people here.”
Before headlining the downtown Boston hospital’s eighth annual Sense-ation gala last night, Cook visited the pediatric floor again — and this time he brought his guitar.
Performing for a group of young patients and hospital staff, including hospital board chairman and Celtics CEO Wyc Grousbeck, Cook played everything from children’s songs to the Beatles’ 1968 classic, “Blackbird.”
A former Berklee College student, Cook also played a song he co-wrote while riding the T with his roommate. The song, “No Such Thing,” became a smash hit a few years later for the roomie, John Mayer.
After the set, Cook said it was “great” to have the chance to play for the young patients.
“I think I was dealt a good hand for even needing a procedure,” he said. “Some of these kids are here for weeks at a time. I feel for them, but they are in the right place, that’s for sure.”