Cox brings character to Acoustic Routes

Thursday, July 29, 2004 | 8:09 a.m.

Some know him best as Drew, the guitarist who played "Dueling Banjos" with the hillbilly boy in "Deliverance."

But Ronny Cox is also a singer/songwriter who's full of lies and perfect timing. When he's not singing, he's good for a laugh.

"I've found that if I don't have a good story for a song, I just make one up," said Cox, who will be performing Friday at the Highland Office Center on South Highland Drive, near I-15 and Sahara Avenue, as part of the Acoustic Routes series.

"With real stories, true stories, the punch line doesn't come at the right time," Cox said.

A folk singer with hints of country-western, Gaelic, Spanish, swing and jazz, you'd think that being a character actor in several dozen movies and television shows might draw audiences. But Cox said via telephone from Northern California, where he's performing at different venues with his sons, that's not the case.

"There is the stigma of being an actor and playing music," Cox said. "You sort of have to live that down. People won't come see me because of that. They say, 'He can't possibly sing.'

"But I was making records when I was in high school. I grew up in Portales, N.M. In (nearby) Clovis, N.M., was a hotbed of recording. I put myself through college with a rock 'n' roll blues band."

It was after college, when Cox was struggling as a singer and actor, that the role in "Deliverance" came around.

"It was instrumental, pun intended, that I could play a guitar," Cox said, referring to the role as one of four city men attempting to raft an Appalachian river. " 'Deliverance' was a huge break for me. It opened doors I didn't know existed.

"My next film was 'Bound For Glory.' I picked and sang a song in that. Then TApple's Way.' I picked and played a song in that."

Eventually came "RoboCop," "Beverly Hills Cop" (I and II), "Stargate SG-1," television's "The Agency" and a score of made-for-television miniseries.

"During the '80s, early '90s I was in practically every movie made," Cox said. "These days they have to beg me pretty hard and pay me lots of money to do movies. But I'll go play music at the drop of a hat.

"I take the music as seriously, if not more seriously, than acting."

With a gentle folk singer's voice, Cox sings about the road, nature, love, superstition and cinema. He's written a clever upbeat ode to hot-water corn bread, along with a tribute to the late actor John Huston in "The Night John Huston Died."

A word lover, Cox has even plucked a word from the "Guinness Book of World Records" known as, he said, "being the world's most succinct word." The Tierra del Fuegan word, "mamihlapinatapei," describes the moment when two people are looking at each other, both wanting the same thing but neither acting on it.

"If you find a word like that, how can you not write a song about it?" Cox said. "I found a Bantu word near Congo: 'M'booky m'vooky.' It's a distant relative of 'boogie-woogie.' You know what that means? It means 'taking of one's clothes in preparation for the dance.' It's not a lascivious idea. In the Congo it's very hot. They take clothes off to dance."

A somewhat unrecognizable actor, Cox also pokes fun at people who approach him on the street, but can't quite place the face. He sings the melody to the song "You Don't Know Me" with rewritten lyrics: "You give your hand to me and then you say hello / And that we met before, about three years ago / I claim to recognize, but it's a pack of lies / 'Cause I don't know you."

In "Always In the Wind," Cox writes about the navajo word "Hozh'Q," which shares a philosophy similar to "Tao."

"Everywhere I go it's underneath my skin," Cox sings. "It's more than I can know and it's always in the wind / Lightning streaks across the desert / I hold you close, we try to measure how long 'til the thunder makes the sound / Sometimes it can rain forever / First a drop, and then a river / And sometimes it don't even hit the ground."

Playing about 100 concerts a year, including the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, Texas, Cox has a five-piece band that sometimes narrows down to two. Sometimes his two sons, Brian and John, perform with him.

"My youngest son, John, used to be the leader of my band," Cox said. "Now he's married, has a kid and has to have a real job. Brian has a real job."

Finding the music

After John left home, it was the television musical "Cop Rock," considered one of the worst shows of all time, that brought Cox back to performing.

"It was my favorite show of all time," Cox said. "That's what got me back into music. When John left home I was devastated. But I was doing 'Cop Rock.' Doing 'Cop Rock,' I realized how much I missed doing the music. So I went to Nashville.

"It's some of the most delicious comedy I've ever played. Every week we'd do five tunes in every show so we did the vocals live, although it failed miserably. We had a guarantee for 13 shows. We did 11 and they said they'd pay us not to do the other two."

But Cox kept on singing and, strangely enough, it's his roles on "Stargate SG-1" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that brings in the most performance money.

Uninterested in attending the "Star Trek" and "Stargate" conventions to sign autographs, Cox was eventually wooed by a promoter who found a way to appease him.

"I found this promoter in England. He agreed to fly me and my band over (for a convention) to do music," Cox said. "I had every fear in the world that they're going to boo me off stage. But it was the most enraptured audience I'd ever had. There was something like three standing ovations. We sold $3,000 worth of CDs before we did our show that night.

"I did the same thing in Tulsa. Munich, Glasgow, England. They all have to do with 'Stargate' and they're paying money you can't imagine folk musicians getting. They fly (my wife) Mary and I first class. They pay for the hotel."

Oddly enough, Cox said, "I'm the guy they love to hate. Senator Kinsey is the scum of the earth as far as they're concerned. For them to be touched by the music ... it's a show that ends up being a shared experience. I've always known that the sci-fi fans and folk-music fans are the same people."

New sounds

Those accustomed to Cox's more western style on "Cowboy Savant" will hear new sounds on his new CD, "Ronny Cox Live," recorded in a rented Los Angeles studio big enough to fit a five-piece band and audience of 50.

"We don't have a name yet and we're struggling," Cox said. "The name we're kind of considering is the Living Room Orchestra. A lot of the times we're just three pieces. But you'd be surprised at the sounds we can get."

Band member Matt Margucci plays accordion, harmonica, guitar and muted coronet. Travis Parker plays fiddle and mandolin.

"He plays fiddle left-handed and mandolin right-handed. I think he gets handicapped parking for that," Cox said.

More seriously, he added, "From all of that we get such a big pallette. We have western influence, jazz influences, some swing stuff and sort of woven through all this are the stories, which is the fun part for me.

"I've been lucky. I've had a really satisfying career. My sons are grown. I've got enough money and I just want to go where my heart is. I'm doing the music for all the right reasons.

"In terms of achieving stardom, I've had my share of that. This is something I do for me."

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