Willard Cox, of Bluegrass Group the Cox Family, Dead at 82

Willard Cox, the patriarch of the Cox Family bluegrass band and grandfather of Monument Records signee Brandon Ratcliff, died on Monday (Nov. 4), Bluegrass Today reports. He was 82 years old.

Cox, an oil refinery worker and fiddler from Louisiana, first formed a band with his children in 1972. The respected bluegrass, gospel and Americana group found a larger audience after Alison Krauss produced their 1993 album, Everybody’s Reaching Out for Someone.

A year later, Krauss forever linked her name to the Cox Family with the collaborative, Grammy-winning gospel album I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. A major-label deal with Asylum Records followed, resulting in the 1996 album Just When We’re Thinking It’s Over.

An even bigger boon than the Cox Family's Krauss partnership, however, came in 2000, when the group cut a version of “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)” for the popular and influential soundtrack for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? Willard Cox also landed a small role in the Coen Brothers movie.

Willard Cox’s career slowed down after a traffic accident in 2000 injured both him and his wife Marie. Cancer claimed Marie Cox’s life in 2009, and Willard Cox spent his final years in a nursing home. There is no word on his cause of death.

The Cox Family completed one last album, Gone Like the Cotton, in 2015.

Remembering the Country Stars Who Have Died in 2019