Chris Cox
Chris first picked up a double bass during a school music lesson when he was 11 years old. Once the teacher took it out from under his chin and turned it the right way up, he was away, ‘Hey, this is fun’, he thought and he was right. It’s been fun ever since.
A lot of good music went on at that school. Contemporary musicians included the legendary Echo Mountain Band, who played bluegrass and inspired Chris also to take up mandolin and guitar. There was also a lot of blues and jazz going on. By the time he went up to Cambridge and met the rest of Telephone Bill – (who were waiting for him), he had two Martin D28s and all the right credentials.
Chris plays double bass in the band, but also writes a lot of the band’s songs. He’s been writing them for a long time now and some of them are really quite good. They’ve got chords and tunes and words and stuff and seem to lend themselves to doing delicious harmony vocals which 'The Bill' are good at, so that’s OK then. 
When he plays bass to Nick’s rhythm guitar it’s as tight as you like and it underpins the whole thing. Always has done.
Chris is also an accomplished solo acoustic guitarist and singer, and is arguably the best jazz mandolin player on the south side of Mill Street in Oxford, though some critics do in fact argue that this should not include the bit at the top end near the cemetery.
