Courtenay-based musician/producer Doug Cox has made his name in the music world mainly as a collaborator. Most recently, he was nominated for a Grammy Award as a player on the latest album release from Tex-Mex kings, Los Texmaniacs.
Cox also just came back from Nashville, where he produced an old-school country music CD for April Verch that included an astounding cast of country music studio legends he put together for this project.
Cox plays Dobro (lap-style slide guitar), mandolin and guitar. His musical history is steeped in the blues and includes stints playing with people like Long John Baldry, Amos Garrett, Ken Hamm, The Sidewalk Blues Band and Sam Hurrie. Cox is a Juno nominee for his cross-cultural experiments with Indian musicians Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt in the group they called Slide To Freedom.
His latest collaboration is with American acoustic blues master, Mary Flower and you can see Doug and Mary together at the Cumberland Hotel on Thursday, April 18.
Mary Flower’s immense finger-picking guitar and lap-slide prowess is soulful and meter-perfect, a deft blend of the inventive, the dexterous and the mesmerizing. Her supple honey-and-whiskey voice provides the perfect melodic accompaniment to each song’s story. An internationally known and award-winning picker, singer/songwriter and teacher, the midwest native relocated from Denver to the vibrant Portland, Oregon music scene in 2004. A finalist in 2000 and 2002 at the National Finger Picking Guitar Championship, a nominee in 2008, 2012 and 2016 for a Blues Foundation Blues Music Award, Flower embodies a luscious and lusty mix of rootsy, acoustic-blues guitar and vocal styles that span a number of idioms – from Piedmont to the Mississippi Delta, with stops in ragtime, swing, folk and hot jazz. Her dedication to the art form is a vital contribution to America’s music.
Tickets for the April 18 show are available
online at www.islandmusicfest.com