Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Aussie bluegrass star in WoodSongs series in Dalton
Kristy Cox, an Australian bluegrass star who has set her sights on the U. S., will headline the next edition of WoodSongs in Dalton, Ga.
Cox had a string of No. 1 hits on radio and Country Music Television in Australia. She was named Female Vocalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year at the Australian Independent Country Music Awards for her 2012 CD, “Miles & Timezones.”
At the 2015 Country Music Association of Australia awards, she won the organization’s inaugural Bluegrass Recording of the Year award for the song “One Heartbreak Away” and was nominated for two additional honors: Female Artist of the Year and Alternate Country Album of the Year for “Living for the Moment,” her first release for Nashville label Pisgah Ridge.
Last year, she released “Part of Me,” which a Bluegrass Today reviewer called “as complete a package as you’ll find anywhere in bluegrass this year.”
One highlight, said David Morris, was “Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore,” written by country music veteran Chris Stapleton and included on his Grammy-winning “Traveller” project.
Stapleton’s version of the song is “terrific,” he wrote. “But Cox owns it, milking every ounce of emotion that can be squeezed out of a threechord song.”
“Living for the Moment” also put Cox on the shortlist as an early finalist for International Bluegrass Music Association awards for Female Vocalist of the Year, Emerging Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for “One Heartbreak Away.”
Opening for Cox will be The Tin Cup Rattlers, the duo of Jeff and Marcy Paulson. Based in Chattanooga, they play the music of southern Appalachia — “the old- time ballads, gospels and folk songs people used to pick on their porches and sing while working,” says their website.
Proceeds f rom t he show benefit the DEO Clinic, a nonprofit providing free medical care for Whitfield and Murray County residents who have limited f inancial resources, no insurance and few options.
The final show in the series is March 25 with Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike, with The Dixie Trio opening.
Kristy Cox owns “Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore,” written by country music veteran Chris Stapleton, “milking every ounce of emotion that can be squeezed out of a three-chord song.”