Cory Cross: Garage Rock & Outlaw Rhythms

 

All photos taken in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards by Alan Mercer

Cory Cross is a singer/songwriter born and raised in Fort Worth, TX. Cory got his musical start playing n church, and has been crafting his unique blend of Bluegrass, Americana, and George-Jones inspired Country Music since he was a teenager. His songs have been featured on radio stations across Texas, and his albums have been reviewed and featured by publications such as Fort Worth Weekly and Dallas Observer. Cory continues to perform with his band all around Texas and has several records out on all streaming platforms, including the EP “Holy Spirits” and hit single “I Can’t Walk the Line.”

Alan Mercer: How long have you been performing and writing music?

Cory Cross:  Let’s see, I’m 35 now and I started playing music in church when I was 15, so I’ve been on stages playing music for over half my life. I was 19 when I played my first secular show. I’ve taken time off and worked for the Christian ministry as a music director for a few years, then gave that up and worked full time off and on for about 15 years, but my latest run has been almost 2 years of me working in music full time. Ironically enough, it was when covid started that I quit my ay job and I released an EP right before the lockdown. I’ve been going full time since everything opened up again.

AM:  You are a unique blend of someone who has experience and is also a new artist.

CC:  Yes, I do have the experience of all the little things like working with sound guys, how to write an email, how to get paid, how to promote a show, so I have enough experience with that. When I got started again, I had a solid infrastructure, but I would consider what we’re doing now as new, as far as my personal direction. It’s a new band. We’ve only been together for about a year. Previously I was playing more coffee shops doing the singer/songwriter type of stuff. I was doing a bunch of acoustic shows and now we do primarily full band shows in the dancehall honky-tonks, which is something that I hadn’t done before.

AM:  Who are the musical influences for this new work?

CC:  From the stuff we’re doing right now, we’re definitely drawing from the 90’s stuff that I was hearing on the radio when I was fishing with my uncle. That would be Clint Black, George Strait, Alan Jackson and a lot of that stuff. Me and the rest of the guys in the band have all played in rock n roll bands. Our live shows have that flavor as well.

AM:  Are you recording anything now?

CC:  Yes, we just finished recording a 4 song LIVE in the studio EP. Instead of tracking everything separately like you normally do in a studio, we wanted to capture the feeling of being at a live show. The EP is called ‘Live At Tomahawk Studios’ that will be out in June. We did the music videos in the studio for each song. We just released the video for ‘I Can’t Walk The Line’. I wrote some tunes for this project as well. April 7 is when the first single from the EP, ‘Done Being Good For Good’ will be released. The video is already out and we got over 200 views in less than 2 weeks so we are stoked.

AM:  I can sense your career is about to lift off.

CC:  We believe that too.

AM:  Do you split your time between Fort Worth and Shreveport?

CC:  Yes, I live in Shreveport and my girlfriend works in Shreveport, but my family lives in Fort Worth, so we are splitting our time between the two places. We do runs with Thursday, Friday, Saturday in Fort Worth and then I’ll do weekday restaurants in Shreveport.

AM:  Those restaurant jobs are acoustic, aren’t they?

CC:  Usually. I have a steel guitar player in Shreveport and in Fort Worth. Normally we do the acoustic stuff.

AM:  Do you have any tours coming up?

CC:  We actually have a tour out west in May and June. We’re going out to California and doing stops along the way. We’re going to do 5 or 6 dates in the LA area ad then head over to Colorado.

AM:  They will love you out there.

CC:  There is a market out there for this kind of music.  When we were in our early 20’s we were all in the punk scene and now I feel like our crowd is out there dancing the two-step to honky-tonk music. That’s cool man. I dig it.

AM:  I talk to a lot of musicians, and everyone seems to have a punk music background.

CC:  I know, isn’t that funny? 

AM:  Why do you think that is?

CC:  When we were first discovering music was when Nirvana hit the scene. A lot of people are like me and when we listened to one band, we wanted to go back and hear what influenced them. Kurt Cobain was listening to the Misfits. We are tracing it back, so when we started playing music at 19, we were playing that punk rock stuff. Back in Austin we were doing really sloppy, fast surf rock.

AM:  Where are you getting your current inspiration from?

CC:  It’s the live shows and what the crowds are responding to the most and usually it’s the old 90’s stuff they can dance to. I’m writing my own versions of those without being derivative. I’m throwing in my own influences like the garage rock stuff and mixing it with the outlaw rhythms like Waylon. I’m playing 6 times a week right now and with a full band we are playing 5 or 6 times a month.

AM:  Why do you think you are playing so much right now?

CC:  We were all locked up with covid and now that we are out again people want to get out there and dance. I’m really proud of my singer/songwriter songs and I think there is a place for that, but we are trying to capture the joy of a live setting.  

AM:  I love your song, ‘I Can’t Walk The Line’. Where did that come from?

CC:  I remember vividly getting ready for worship practice at church and that little rift just came to me. I was thinking back to my experience outside the law. It’s a little tongue and cheek.

AM:  I love the humor.

CC:  One of the things I like about country music is the wit. George Jones ‘I’ll Get Over Her When The Grass Grows Over me’, it’s like a punch line. ‘If Drinking Don’t Kill Me, Her Memory Will’, there’s a set up and a punch line. It’s a sad subject matter but you want people to experience some joy.

AM:  You mentioned growing up in the church. Can you tell me a little about that?

CC:  Yes, my dad was a pastor, and my grandfather was a pastor, my great grandfather was a pastor, my brother was a pastor, and my uncle was a pastor. I did that for a little bit and my faith is the most important thing to me, but I feel like God moved me in this direction. It wasn’t like I turned my back on my faith, I just went in a different direction. It’s so important in my life, that now in the secular arena I can be a voice to someone who this can be helpful for. Maybe they won’t hear a sermon or a worship song, but they might follow me and hear my story and then explore their own faith. It could save their life as it really did save my life.

To learn more about Cory Cross visit his web site https://www.corycrossmusic.com/

 

Lee Mays: The Award Winning Smooth Jazzman

 

All photos by Alan Mercer except the 2 album covers

Lee Mays, a.k.a. Percy Mays, is a singer, songwriter, and producer who is internationally recognized and critically acclaimed. In 1976, Mr. Mays made his mark in the world of contemporary Christian music with the release of his self-made vinyl album, "Shine Your Love". In 1978, the title song, "Shine Your Love" was released as a single on Word Records by The Cruse Family. That song contributed to The Cruse Family's 1978 album entitled, "Transformation", which won the Dove Award for "Best Album of the Year".

Since the early 2000’s, the “Shine Your Love” album has been a highly sought after item on internet auction sites such as eBay, Yahoo Japan, and other auction sites due to the fact that it had become a vinyl collector’s gem over the decades. The music of “Shine You Love” has also been licensed by several independent record companies including The Numero Group in August 2022.

Lee's first album 'Shine Your Love' from 1978 under the name Percy Mays

In December of 2015, Mr. Mays released the “Real Love” CD on the Soul Invasion record label. The 13 songs on the “Real Love” CD contain a mixture of smooth jazz and R&B/Soul sounds. In 2014, the single, “Give Me Another Chance” featuring Fulton Turnage, was among the year’s Top-30 songs in the United Kingdom on the Global Soul Radio Station, which is UK’s #1 Internet radio show.

From 2015 to 2021, art directors and booking agents in jazz clubs and concert halls booked Mr. Mays for concert appearances in major cities throughout Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, and Italy. To his credit, Lee currently has one Italian feature film and three Italian short films in which his music can be heard.

Lee Mays 'Real Love' album cover

In August 2022, Lee won the Amsterdam Freedom Independent Film Festival's Best Original Score award for his compilation of 11 songs in the Italian short film, La Carrozza dei Sogni (The Carriage of Dreams), directed by Frances Sapphire.

In March 2023, Lee won Best Original Score for a second time with La Carrozza dei Sogni at the 2023 Luis Buñuel Memorial Awards in Calcutta, India.

Alan Mercer:  Lee, you have a brand new song coming out. What can you tell me about it?

Lee Mays:  The new song is called ‘Rainbow In My Heart’ and it’s actually not a new song. I’ve been playing with it for the last few years. Now, I have beefed up the production and finetuned it. I got the software, that I’ve had for years, off the shelf when we were on lockdown. I taught myself to use it because what else was there to do?

AM:  Covid was good for musicians in a way.

LM:  Yes, I had to become introspective, like we all did. I had been spending thousands of dollars a year going to recording studios in Dallas. There is nothing like going form spending ten thousand dollars a year to spending nothing on production. I only had to pay for the musicians. It’s all been a learning process for me for the last three years. I have learned how to be a good studio engineer. That is really something for me because I am a musician, an artistic person. I am not a technical person. I could never be an electrical engineer.

AM:  Was learning this technical side as hard as you thought it would be?

LM:  I used to think it was complicated, but the more I sat down and learned it, it wasn’t as hard as I originally thought. I’m more talented and smarter than I thought I was. I’ve taught myself just about everything I’ve learned how to do in life. I taught myself how to play piano and guitar. I even taught myself how to sing. Back in the old days I was told by a good friend that I wasn’t a singer. Back when I was in college, I was in a trio in Canyon, Texas. They are good friends of mine to this day. They were all state choir back in high school. They were tenors and I was a comedian. I was considered the Bill Cosby of West Texas.

AM:  That’s the hardest job in the world.

LM:  It is the hardest but it was easy for me because all I had to do was listen to the old Bill Cosby records and I did impersonations of him. That was good enough for me and the audience. Of course, today I wouldn’t touch anything by Bill Cosby. It was fun back then. We had a music comedy show and we would travel to schools and churches and do shows. I was writing songs way back as far as 1970 and the guys were doing my songs in the shows. One day I told them I wanted to sing. I saw these guys getting all the glory. I played bass in the background. I would see all the girls loving the singers and I wanted some of that. Those guys told me I was a good songwriter, a good bass player and a good comedian but I was not a singer. It was two against one, so I said, OK. Fast forward five years and those guys recorded a country gospel album and then I did an album called ‘Shine Your Love’ and guess which album got all the airplay. The album that I produced, wrote, and sang on. Today it’s a collector’s item.  

AM:  It’s wrong to tell people they can’t sing. It’s simply a different style.

LM:  It is wrong. A lot of it has to do with desire and your heart. If you have the heart for something and a desire for something, you can do it. I had to teach myself how to sing. It was the same thing when I recorded the ‘Real Love’ album back in 2015. I didn’t think I was good enough to sing some of the songs I had written so I didn’t sing half the songs I wrote. I picked my favorite singers from Dallas and I asked them to sing because I felt they could do it better than me.

AM:  Much like Quincy Jones.

LM: Yes, then my good friend, Fulton Turnage, who is a great singer and my saxophone player, sang on the album. I took him with me to Russia in 2016 where we did a duet together and it was a smash hit. This was my first time in Russia. Everywhere we went, the people loved our show. He sang some of my songs. The next year when I was returning to Russia, he couldn’t go. I had to learn how to sing the songs that he sang because they had to be sung and the audience loved it. I’ve had to learn how to adapt and be what I had to be in order to get the music across.

AM:  You have your own unique way with a song, and you have a niche all to yourself. You should be celebrated for it.

LM:  I’ve heard people say that. My record label in Nashville told me they wanted me on their roster because there is nobody who can do what you do. It’s cool to have that distinction.

AM:  I like you working with other artists also.

LM:  When I was last in Italy I teamed up with a young Rap/Hip Hop artist out of Milan. He is coming out with a single and I am featured on it. That will be a mix of smooth jazz and rap. His name is Sclaise and he’s very talented. I’m looking forward to this release.

AM:  Is it in Italian?

LM:  The rap is Italian, but my vocals are in English. We did a music video in a city north of Milan called Arona. It’s a beautiful resort city. It’s a worldwide release so hopefully we will get some airplay in the United States as well.

AM:  Lee, your songs always seem to be and stay at the top of the charts even though you don’t play live shows very much.

LM:  That is so interesting. I’ve been an artist on ReverbNation since 2014. Throughout the whole time, my music has always been at the top of the charts in the genre of R&B/Soul and Smooth Jazz. Right now, ‘Rainbow In My Heart’ is the number one song in Dallas/Fort Worth and it’s been that way for months. I know people are listening to my music. It’s really come as a surprise. I never thought that week after week, month after month and year after year, my songs would stay so popular. Maybe because they sound more commercial.

AM:  You have a good commercial ear.

LM:  Many years ago, I as offered a job in Nashville to be a staff writer for Bobby Goldsboro Music. This was back in the 1980s. They guy that offered me the job used to be in a band I was in back in California and he wrote commercials. He wrote lots of famous jingles and commercials.

AM:  Obviously, you didn’t accept that job.

LM:  At the time I couldn’t make it work. I would have had to move to Nashville, so I never took the job.

AM:  Are you going to keep releasing songs on the MC1 Nashville label?

LM:  Yes, although I may decide to release a single independently. I’ve got a song called ‘Won’t You Be My Girl’ and I finally have it sounding the way I want it to sound.

AM:  You also write Gospel songs, don’t you?

LM:  Yes, I have a gospel song I wrote about 25 years ago about a lady I was dating at the time, and she had a little dog that was 13 years old and when the dog passed, it tore her up. That was her child. The family dog is like a baby. Since I was not a pet owner, I was surprised by how devastating it was for her, so I decided to write a song inspired by a dog who died. The title of the song is ‘He Will Take Care Of You’.  It’s a song designed to comfort.

AM:  So many people need comforting all the time.

LM:  You don’t need to have lost a pet to be able to relate to the song. It’s about somebody caring for you enough that no matter what happens you will be taken care of. I hope I can release it on MC1 Nashville’s gospel label.

AM:  Gospel music is your roots.

LM:  That is my roots. I started playing piano in my dad’s church when I was nine years old. My dad was a Baptist minister. There was nobody to play piano and my dad told me I had to learn so I could play.

AM:  When did you start playing jazz?

LM:  I started playing jazz chords when I was 17. One of my favorite bands back then was the band, Chicago. I love those kind of chords so I started playing that jazzy type of stuff. Then by the time I was 18 I started writing the songs that would be on the ‘Shine Your Love’ album.

AM:  Do you have any goals left at this time?

LM:  I just want to be where I’m wanted the most. I had been busy in Russia and Ukraine from 2015 to 2019. Of course, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I had to cancel everything. I almost moved to Moscow. I had moved out of my apartment, and I had considered relocating to Moscow because when I was there I would get calls every day from all over the Russian federation to come perform. I was also getting calls from Italy. The Italian people love me, so I might relocate to Rome or Milan. All I want to do is work. I want to be in front of audiences and perform my music. That’s my passion.

To learn more about Lee Mays visit his ReverbNation page