Sidney Cox
Sidney Cox is a banjo player, Dobro player, guitarist and singer in the Cox Family, the band of his father, Willard, and his sisters Evelyn, Lynn and Suzanne from Cotton Valley, Louisiana. He also writes songs: Alison Krauss recorded his “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” as the title song of her 1990 album and several more of his songs after it, and he sang on the family’s Grammy-winning I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (1994).
He was born on 21 July 1965. The family performed together from 1972, touring Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas from their home in the northwest of the state and singing hymns alongside original songs. On their first album, I Shall Not Be Moved (Wilcox, 1978), Sidney played banjo and sang; on Heartaches Along the Horizon (Wilcox, 1987) he played banjo and resonator guitar and sang.
Krauss recorded “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” as the title song of her 1990 Rounder album, and two more of his songs, “Last Love Letter” and “New Fool,” on Every Time You Say Goodbye (1992) with Union Station. She then produced the Cox Family’s Everybody’s Reaching Out for Someone (Rounder, 1993). Sidney sang lead on “Look Me Up by the Ocean Door,” “Backroads” and his own “I’ve Got That Old Feeling,” playing guitar on the last, and sang baritone or tenor behind his sisters and father on most of the rest. On I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (Rounder, 1994), made by the family with Krauss and the members of her band, he sang lead on “Loves Me Like a Rock.” The album won the Grammy for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album at the 37th Grammy Awards. The family went on to Beyond the City (Rounder, 1995) and an album for Asylum, Just When We’re Thinking It’s Over (1996).
The family’s recording of “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)” on the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) has Sidney on banjo and harmony vocals; the soundtrack won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and its later deluxe edition added two more Cox Family recordings.
Krauss and Union Station went on to record “Borderline,” which he wrote with Suzanne, on Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004), and his “Bonita and Bill Butler” on Paper Airplane (2011). Alan Jackson recorded his “Had It Not Been You” on Like Red on a Rose (2006), an album on which Sidney also sang harmony, and he sang harmony on Krauss’s Forget About It (1999) and on “This Train” from Randy Travis’s Glory Train (2005). On the family’s last album, Gone Like the Cotton (Rounder, 2015), he sang lead on “In My Eyes,” played Dobro on “Lost Without Your Love” and “Let It Roll” and guitar on the title song, sang harmony throughout and wrote the liner notes. The album reached No. 1 on Billboard’s bluegrass albums chart.
