Laura Cox

Over the course of ten years, Anglo-French guitarist Laura Cox progressed from an adolescent posting bedroom renditions online to a globally recognized performer whose hard-rocking blues showcased exceptional command of her instrument.

She entered the world in Paris in 1990, the daughter of a French mother and an English father, and received her first guitar—an inexpensive classical model—from an aunt when she turned fourteen. Although naturally left-handed, she trained herself to play right-handed. In 2006, during the platform’s formative period, she started uploading videos and confined her activity to her bedroom for the next seven years, initially interpreting other artists’ material before shifting to original compositions. Once she had amassed a substantial audience and widespread digital praise, Cox made her concert debut in 2013 by assembling the Laura Cox Band alongside guitarist Mathieu Albiac, bassist François Delacoudre, a veteran studio musician, and drummer Antonin Guérin. The group composed and tracked the albums Hard Blues Shot (2017) and Burning Bright (2019), then took the music across Europe to festivals including PolandRock and HellFest.

Following those releases, Albiac exited, an event Cox reframed as a chance to explore greater artistic autonomy. Isolated on the Portuguese coast amid COVID-19 restrictions, she composed and recorded her third album solo, incorporating banjo and pedal steel among other instruments. Issued in 2023 on the German classic-rock label Ear Music, Head Above Water emerged as a more relaxed collection that broadened the bluegrass elements first glimpsed on earlier work.