Tony Cox is a British

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

and arranger. As such he was influential in late 1960s and 1970s

folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers s ...

developments and the fledgling

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

scene, and has since worked primarily as a composer and orchestrator.

Career

He entered the music business as a performer in 1966, and as a duo with Douglas MacRae-Brown released ''The Young Idea'' LP in 1967, and had a UK top ten hit single with a cover version of the Lennon-McCartney song "

With a Little Help from My Friends "With a Little Help from My Friends" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and sung by drummer Ringo Starr (as Sgt. Pep ...

". (The album was re-issued on CD in 2009 with previously unreleased tracks.) He continued performing in the studio with various acts he produced such as

Trees In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...

and

Mick Softley Michael Softley (26 September 1939 – 1 September 2017) was an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A figurehead during the British folk scene, Softley set up his own folk club, released three albums and worked with performers such as Mac ...

. He was an early adopter of the

EMS VCS 3 The VCS 3 (or VCS3; an initialism for ''Voltage Controlled Studio, version #3'') is a portable analog synthesizer with a flexible modular voice architecture introduced by Electronic Music Studios (London) Limited (EMS) in 1969. EMS release ...

synthesizer and in 1971 played on the

Spirogyra ''Spirogyra'' (common names include water silk, mermaid's tresses, and blanket weed) is a genus of filamentous charophyte green algae of the order Zygnematales, named for the helical or spiral arrangement of the chloroplasts that is character ...

album ''St. Radigunds'', and

Mike Heron James Michael Heron (born 27 December 1942) is a Scottish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work in the Incredible String Band in the 1960s and 1970s. Career Heron was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and attended th ...

's album ''Smiling Men With Bad Reputations''. In 1972 he played piano with

The Bunch The Bunch were a British folk rock band, which came together in 1971 to record their one off album, '' Rock On''. Formation The Bunch was put together by Trevor Lucas in late 1971, close to a year after his former band, Fotheringay, had disba ...

alongside

Sandy Denny Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978) was an English singer who was lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer". After briefly w ...

on vocals, and in 1976 he played synth on Martin Carthy's ''Crown Of Horn'' LP. In 1974 he founded

Sawmills Studios Sawmills Studios, founded in 1974 by record producer Tony Cox, is a recording studio near Golant on the banks of the River Fowey in Cornwall. The studio building is located on its own tidal creek on the banks of the Fowey. Sawmills was one ...

in Cornwall, one of the first residential recording studios in the UK. In 1978 he married the singer-songwriter

Lesley Duncan Lesley Cox (née Duncan; 12 August 1943 – 12 March 2010) was an English singer-songwriter, best known for her work during the 1970s. She received much airplay on British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, but never achieved ...

,Interview with Lesley Duncan, at lesleyduncan.net Retrieved 6 November 2016 and produced her single "The Magic's Fine". In 1979 produced and arranged the charity single "Sing Children Sing" for the

International Year of the Child UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child.

. In 1982 he produced Duncan's cover version of

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

's '

Masters of War "Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962–63 and released on the album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in the spring of 1963. The song's melody was adapted from the traditional "Nottamun Town." Dylan's lyrics are ...

' single. In 1996 they moved to the Isle of Mull, Scotland.Tony Cox
FATTO* – a little about what I’ve done
Retrieved 8 November 2017 From 1988 to 1990 he worked for Andrew Lloyd Webber's

Really Useful Group The Really Useful Group Ltd. (RUG) is an international company set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is involved in theatre, film, television, video and concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing. ...

as music supervisor, overseeing various shows. Recently Cox has been composing 'Protomodal' music for instrumental ensemble, creating a uniquely distinctive sound by utilizing unusual

modal scale In music theory, the term mode or ''modus'' is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context. Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. It ...

s and unorthodox harmonies, mixing rigid composition rules with John Cage like chance elements.Tony Cox on Protomodalism
Retrieved 8 November 2017

Credits

Producer

* Caravan *

(arranger) *

Tír na nÓg In Irish mythology Tír na nÓg (; "Land of the Young") or Tír na hÓige ("Land of Youth") is one of the names for the Celtic Otherworld, or perhaps for a part of it. Tír na nÓg is best known from the tale of Oisín and Niamh. Other Old Ir ...

* Magna Carta (arranger) *

(arranger) *

Françoise Hardy Françoise Madeleine Hardy (; born 17 January 1944) is a French former singer and songwriter. Mainly known for singing melancholic sentimental ballads, Hardy has been an important figure in French pop music since her debut, spanning a career o ...

(arranger) * Mick Greenwood (arranger) *

Amory Kane Jack Daniel Kane Jr. (born March 28, 1946), known professionally as Amory Kane, is an American singer-songwriter, mostly known for his work in Britain in the late 1960s. Biography He was born in San Francisco. His father was a military attach� ...

Arranger and orchestrator

Family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

* Yes *

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and

Beverley Beverley is a market and minster town and a civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, of which it is the county town. The town centre is located south-east of York's centre and north-west of City of Hull. The town is known fo ...

Martyn

References

The Young Idea LP, at Discogs.com
Retrieved 5 November 2016.
The Young Idea, on officialcharts.com
Retrieved 5 November 2016. *

Electric Eden ''Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music'' is a 2011 book by Rob Young about the history of British folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from t ...

: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music, by Rob Young. * ''The Young Idea'' CD liner notes by Stefan Granados * The Great British Recording Studios, by Howard Massey.
Mick Softley CD
Retrieved 5 November 2016.
credits on Allmusic.com
Retrieved 5 November 2016.

External links

Official website

'The Young Idea' singles
on 45Cat
Tony Cox
on

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Tony Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Living people English record producers The Bunch members