Jeff Cook, guitarist and fiddle player for Alabama, has Parkinson's and will be taking a break from the award-winning country-rock band, he announced Tuesday. The band tweeted a picture and a link to the story, telling friends and fans, "We wanted you to be among the first to know." The 67-year-old lead guitarist told Owen and Gentry immediately after he was diagnosed four years ago, but beyond that had "tried not to burden anyone else with the details" of his condition, he said. Owen told the Tennessean that in recent years, some people had speculated that Cook's behavior was due to substance abuse. “He’s not, and me and Teddy wanted to say a lot of things to these people."

Source: Los Angeles Times April 11, 2017 20:42 UTC