Landon "Sonny" Cox is a Jazz alto saxophonist, born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1938. His mother Helen Harris was a singer and performed with Erskine Hawkins

Erskine Hawkins

Erskine Ramsay Hawkins was an American trumpet player and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is most remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson...

. He first played with The Rocks a Cincinnati-based group that backed Jackie Wilson

Jackie Wilson

Jack Leroy "Jackie" Wilson, Jr. was an American singer and performer. Known as "Mr. Excitement", Wilson was important in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. He was known as a master showman, and as one of the most dynamic singers and performers in R&B and rock history...

, Jerry Butler

Jerry Butler (singer)

Jerry Butler is an American soul singer and songwriter. He is also noted as being the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group, The Impressions, as well as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.Butler is also an American politician...

, Solomon Burke

Solomon Burke

Solomon Burke was an American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, mortician, and an archbishop of the United House of Prayer For All People. Burke was known as "King Solomon", the "King of Rock 'n' Soul", and as the "Bishop of Soul", and described as "the Muhammad Ali of soul", and as "the most...

, Lavern Baker

LaVern Baker

LaVern Baker was an American rhythm and blues singer, who had several hit records on the pop chart in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedlee Dee" , "Jim Dandy" , and "I Cried a Tear" .-Early life:She was born Delores LaVern Baker in Chicago, Illinois...

 and other soul artists. In 1955, Cox met organist Ken Prince and they began to work together around Chicago. In 1964, they formed the Three Souls with drummer Robert Shy. The group made three albums for the Argo-Cadet label.

In 1974, Cox became the baseball coach for Paul Robeson High School (Chicago, Illinois)

Paul Robeson High School (Chicago, Illinois)

Paul Robeson High School is a public high school in the Englewood neighborhood of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is a part of Chicago Public Schools...

. In 1981, he became the basketball coach at King College Prep High School

King College Prep High School

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. College Preparatory High School is a high school located in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood on Drexel Blvd., about one kilometer from Lake Michigan...

, where he coached three state basketball championship teams.

According to jazz critic Joe Segal, Cox was influenced by Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic was an American jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist, and a pioneer of the post-war American Rhythm and Blues style. He had a number of popular hits such as "Flamingo", "Harlem Nocturne", "Temptation", "Sleep", "Special Delivery Stomp", and "Where or When", which showed off his...

 and Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

:
"Sonny's general sound is an amalgamation of the jazz feeling (derived from a Charlie Parker spark) and a warm fuzzy throaty sound and approach inluenced by the daddy of the rock altoists Earl Bostic" (liner notes of Argo 4036). He also sounds sometimes like Hank Crawford

Hank Crawford

Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, soul jazz alto saxophonist, arranger and songwriter...

.

Discography

• The Three Souls Dangerous Dan express (Argo Records
  Argo Records
  Argo Records was started in December of 1955 to accommodate some of the rapidly growing recording activity at Chess Records. Originally the label was called Marterry, but bandleader Ralph Marterie objected, and within a couple of months the imprint was renamed Argo.Initially, Argo offered a...
  
   4036)(1964)
• The Three Souls Soul Sounds (Argo 4044) (1965)
• Sonny Cox The wailer (Cadet Records
  Cadet Records
  Cadet Records was started as Argo Records in 1955 as the jazz subsidiary of Chess Records. Argo changed its name in 1965 to Cadet to avoid confusion with the similarly named label in the UK...
  
  765) (1966) (with Richard Evans orchestra).

External links

• http://www.lordisco.com TOM LORD'S JAZZ DISCOGRAPHY
• The Chess Labels, Greenwood Press (Michel Ruppli, 1983)