MUSIC FEATURE
push you to where you are now,” Cox says. Milestone, that blows the cobwebs off the listener’s brain. It his current path, at age 15 he asked to live with his not coincidentally, is the title of Cox’s latest full- recalls when saxophonist supreme John Coltrane father. His mother obliged. Sauls took his son to the length album, slated for a July 2 release. stepped beyond the constraints of hard bop into Glory Baptist Church of Wilson. There Cox found the He’ll feature the new material at a June 16 an undiscovered realm of polytonal torrents, or musical tribe he never knew he needed. concert at Neighborhood Theatre. The show will when art pop innovators Talking Heads left the “There was a plethora of young, insanely feature a band comprised of Evan Brice on keyboards, monochrome new wave of Fear of Music for the talented [musical] prodigies, 12- and 15-year-old Braxton Bateman on trumpet, Harvey Cummings on technicolor Afropop of Remain in Light. geniuses,” Cox recalls. “I was so intimidated by how Greg Cox reaches a career saxophone and Cedric “CJ” Thompson on drums. The amazing they were.” ‘Milestone’ gig will also be filmed by a video crew. Cox joined the group of young musicians, who Making of a musician “[Milestone] is the best album I’ve done to date,” went to the church after school and played for hours, Growing up in Wilson, Cox was surrounded by BY PAT MORAN Cox says. That’s a tall order for the producer who has music. His mother, Angela Cox, sang along with the sometimes going as late as 3 a.m. collaborated with gospel superstar Kirk Franklin, “We’re playing, sharing things and competing Greg Cox couldn’t believe his good fortune. At Charlotte songwriter Emily Sage, and R&B artist gospel and classic ’80s and ’90s R&B records she — going at each other,” Cox says. “It was like Sparta.” played. His father, minister and renowned gospel 19, the Wilson, North Carolina, native had the run A$H, among others. As the group members grew older, they singer Johnavan “Bo Peep” Sauls, is a songwriter of Stevie Wonder’s Hollywood mansion, graduated and started looking for gigs to hobnobbing with a group of young play. They all heard about the auditions musicians from across the country. The being held in New York for MTV’s Making talented yet untested artists were there for His Band. Cox learned about the opportunity the 2009 MTV reality show Making His Band, from his then-girlfriend. competing for a spot in executive producer “She wasn’t [saying] ‘Oh, this is so great!’ Sean “Diddy” Combs’ band for an upcoming It was like, ‘You need to go and do something tour. with your life!’” Cox says. After auditions in New York, Cox had He took a bus to New York and aced earned a spot among the finalists in L.A. the auditions. Out of all Cox’s friends who Competing as a pianist, Cox faced his biggest tried out, only his neighbor up the street in challenge in the show’s initial elimination Wilson, Jamareo Artis, also made the cut. round. Before being stumped by Monsieur “It was tough,” Cox remembers. “The Hanon’s finger work, Cox excelled at a few first exercise was this classical challenge — other filmed musical challenges in the L. A. Hanon exercises.” house, but they never made it into the show. Created by 19th-century French For Cox, it was a lesson in the editing “magic” composer Charles Louis-Hanon, the of reality TV. exercises are a series of scales and arpeggios The contest was also a lesson in the ways designed to train pianists in speed, agility, and means of the music business. Artis went strength and precision. They are a daunting on to win the competition, theoretically challenge, even for seasoned pianists, and earning a spot in Diddy’s touring band — Cox had never heard of them. On live TV, except he didn’t. Cox steadied his nerves and sat down at the Artis never played with Diddy. No one COURTESY OF GREG COX keyboard to give it his best shot. He failed IN THE STUDIO (FROM LEFT) WITH GREG COX, KIRK FRANKLIN ANDRON HILL did. After the show wrapped, Diddy’s people and was eliminated from the field. hired a music director who booked practiced “They had to eliminate someone,” Cox says His debut EP The Last Start, is a vulnerable and musicians instead of a fresh-faced kid from a reality with equanimity. “They [were] trying to find a way explosive 2012 project that draws upon unstinting who composed material for his gospel group Revive TV show. to weed out the group because everybody was self-examination. Released in 2018, Cox’s first full- as well as other worship performers. He cuts a “They wanted to go with people they knew, not commanding figure to this day. talented.” length album, Etc., delivers on the EP’s promise, a bunch of strangers,” Cox says. “Everywhere we went, everyone knew my dad,” Now a Grammy Award-winning singer, examining the personal repercussions of fatherhood Today he understands the decision. Fledgling songwriter and producer at age 31, Cox is beyond and the public fallout from systemic racism. Yet Cox remembers. Since Cox looked just like his dad, musicians like himself and Artis still had to pay their philosophical about his brief exposure on TV 12 despite these musical high points, Cox may be he earned the sobriquet Little Bo Peep. Cox’s parents dues. Incidentally, in a chain of events that couldn’t years ago. In fact, he embraces that setback, right about Milestone. Lush and multi-layered, yet split up when he was 4 years old, and his mother have been anticipated, Cox’s friend Artis met Bruno reasoning that it set him on the path that brought emotionally direct, the album has the hallmarks of raised him. While his brother and sister made the Mars outside a New York club where Artis was high school honor roll, Cox was the family’s black him to where he is today. Each life contains pivotal a masterpiece. playing bass in R&B performer Monica’s band. Mars sheep. moments that change its trajectory, he says, Milestone catapults past his previous recordings, “I got whoopin’s all the time for disciplinary recognized Artis from Making His Band and hired tracing a series of events in his own life that have as engaging, heartfelt and fine-tooled as they are. him for his group. led from that long-ago disappointment to success, Though Cox would demur at the comparisons, the actions and academic failures,” Cox says. “I didn’t feel “Next thing you know they’re playing the like my mom understood me.” fatherhood, heartbreak and a renewal of faith. album boasts a fresh, eclectic and hook-filled attack Superbowl,” Cox says. In the first of a chain of events that set Cox on “There are milestones in everyone’s life that
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