Tony Cox
South African Acoustic Guitarist
The sight of a 10-year-old boy hitch-hiking along one of Redcliff's dusty back roads
in what was then Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe, with a large dreadnought guitar over
his shoulder was not unusual for the locals of this tiny iron-ore mining town. So
placid and crime-free was the environment back then that there were absolutely no
concerns over a boy so young hitch-hiking on his own with a guitar as tall as he
was, to get to the town of Kwe-Kwe for his weekly guitar lesson. The major concerns
really were wild animals such as leopards, baboons and the odd poisonous snake. The
boy though had been exposed early to much bush-craft by his avid hunter father and
had an already well-developed sense of how to move through the African landscape
with an eye for any potential dangers.
This weekly ritual, hefting a big, six-string guitar from the one town to the other
was part of the early life of South African acoustic guitarist Tony Cox. If one listens
closely to Cox's extraordinary guitar playing, all that dust and bush and wide African
landscape is very much apparent in the music he creates. It is like his musical umbilical
cord still reaching back, still informing the present and giving his music an edge
quite like no other guitar player. His music is totally refreshing and indeed surprising
in its complete lack of cliché and in its innate ability to emotionally move people,
taking them on an aural journey at once visceral, new and entirely unforgettable.
His is a repertoire all his own, so different to the usual solo guitar players' set
bag of tricks and tunes. This is what one feels when attending a Cox concert; he
is not trying to impress you with great technical playing or with a string of golden-oldie
covers, he's there to give you what he is made of and what made him, through the
medium of an acoustic guitar and the warmth of his natural sense of humour..../
