Izzy Cox, The “Steampunk Crooner” Has Died
A master of the macabre, a siren of steampunk, a vital part to the formation of underground roots, and a sister to so many artists and fans who followed her musical journey from the French-speaking regions of Canada to the forgotten spaces in Austin’s authentic underbelly, Izzy Cox was a creative burst that unabashedly explored the dark regions of the human mind and soul with courage and honesty, backed up by a divine voice carried upon billowous talent. She never fit into this world quite right, and that is what made her such a compelling and beloved artist.
According to close friends, Isabelle-Lilane Cox, known professionally as Izzy, has passed away after a long battle with late-stage Pancreatic Cancer. She died Friday evening (3-24) while in hospice care. Izzy was diagnosed with the disease in 2016, and had undergone extensive surgeries and chemotherapy over the last year. Many of her fellow Austin musicians had rallied by her side in multiple benefit concerts and a Go Fund Me campaign to help her with extensive medical bills, including a benefit during the recent South By Southwest at The Music Ranch just east of Austin.
Izzy Cox spent some of her childhood living in rural West Texas before moving to French Canadian Montreal. She says that she had an unusual childhood growing up in a religious organization and learning to play music from an early age while performing in marching bands, traveling regularly at the age of 12. All of this went on to the diametric and diverse sounds and themes that would later work into Izzy’s music and visual art. Murder ballads, steampunk jazz, punk, primitive and traditional country, and dark Gospel all inferred the Izzy Cox sound that was primordial to underground roots.
Her first musical output came in the form of mix tapes she released while in custody for juvenile delinquency in Canada. Later she would become a fixture of the Montreal independent music scene, releasing multiple records and rubbing elbows with artists such as the Rufus and Martha Wainwright among others, and also spending time in New York.
Izzy Cox left Montreal to move to Hollywood at the age of 27, and after a stint in California, eventually settled in Austin, TX a little over 10 years ago. Izzy Cox became a fixture of the local venues on Red River and beyond, while touring the United States extensively at times, primarily as a one-woman band playing a bass drum and hollow-bodied Gretsch guitar, singing her original songs and a catalog of country, bluegrass, and Gospel standards.
Her most recent band was Izzy Cox and the Ghosts formed in March of 2016 in Austin with guitarist Tony Cook, bassist Pete Maclanahan, and drummer Grant Dorian. Despite Izzy’s grave diagnosis, she continued to play out in Austin and make appearances at local venues, including at the Carousel Lounge and other places at the behest of her doctors to stay positive and upbeat.
At various times called the “Original Steampunk Crooner” the “Vodoobilly Jazz Queen” among other monikers, Izzy Cox was a local underground artist with international name recognition from her ability to put words and music to the innate fears encountered in the human experience.
Rest in Peace, Izzy.
March 25, 2017 @ 10:28 am
Awful, awful news. Rest easy.
March 25, 2017 @ 11:32 am
I had planned to do an extensive feature on Izzy when she was still alive, visit her in the hospital, see one of her final shows, and pay her proper tribute while she was still around. The living always believe they’ll have more time. We’ll get to it tomorrow. And then tomorrow never comes. I always thought there was more time. Despite her diagnosis and desperate situation, Izzy put on a bright face, played shows, and made public appearances all the way up to the end. Her music was dark, but her heart was immense. She will be greatly missed.
March 25, 2017 @ 4:14 pm
Thanks for this heartfelt and fitting obituary. Montreal loves you, Queen Izzy!
March 25, 2017 @ 4:24 pm
Great job Trigger. Izzy was a true indie artist pioneer. She did it all herself. It’s true, we always think that we have one more day. But time is our enemy. We will always have her music, and it’s the music that is timeless.
March 25, 2017 @ 5:39 pm
I was not familiar with her works and through a friend posting the information of her passing on facebook i now have another beautiful voice to add to my collection.
I am so sorry for her untimely death and to lose yet another great artist is such a shame.
Goodnight Izzy and thank you for this beautiful music that you left behind for us to enjoy.
March 25, 2017 @ 8:30 pm
Man I hate to hear this! …Izzy and I had the same manager at one point some years ago. I lost a brother to pancreatic cancer in 2010. Scary disease. …Rest easy Izzy. <3
March 26, 2017 @ 9:24 pm
I was just introduced to Izzy after seeing a show with Billy Pitman Friday night. Saturday doing research on Billy came across Izzy, and Billy playing together…….I am so sorry for family, and friends for their loss of their Izzy………
March 27, 2017 @ 2:42 am
There is so much missing of her time in Hollywood and the albums of Izzy Cox and the Eskimos. I’m still trying to find them. Especially Je t’ame.
March 27, 2017 @ 8:56 am
I agree. I wish I had more information about this period in her career. I didn’t know of Izzy until after she moved to Austin, and unfortunately the info on her online is woeful.
March 28, 2017 @ 4:42 am
Damn. Queen of the Murder Ballad murdered by cancer. She was quickly becoming a favourite of mine but as usual my favourites either have little out put or do not last long.
She is a badass.
December 23, 2017 @ 10:26 pm
Love you endlessly best friend, sister, family. From your sunshine girl
December 29, 2017 @ 10:48 am
I am doing an en memorian wrap and looking up Izzy Cox, and yours was the ONLY article to come up for me. (sigh) She is a name that needs to be out there more for sure.
February 2, 2018 @ 6:51 pm
It was really great to find this online!! Thanks for writing such a nice little bio of my friend/bandmate Izzy Cox. She was a true original! I was playing with Pete, Tony, and Izzy in the Ghosts when she got the diagnosis and I’ve got to say that she handled it better than the rest of us. Through out it all she inspired love and with it, ultimately, happiness. She still inspires me. There is a documentary in production about her life, Izzy Cox: Fighting the Devil… https://www.facebook.com/fightingthedevil/
May 10, 2019 @ 6:15 am
Sad to see people like this never get truly famous, end up in the underground, and die early of an illness while untalented super sexy mediocrities like Maren Morris get all the fame and chart action to push her (most likely) mediocre ‘music’ down our throats. I’d like to find out more about this lady and her music; of course, I’ll have to search for it, just as I have to search for all of the good stuff in the other genres I listen to.
December 18, 2021 @ 9:06 pm
As Isabelles Dad, I read with regret your misinformation about Isabelle’s youth, In mostly Montreal Quebec Canada, where The Parti Québécois were fluffy ethnically cleansing Anglos from the province of Quebec, which from 1979 until their ouster in 1994 they closed down all English schools beginning in 1979 when Isabelle went to grade one, every year thereafter they shut down every school she attended and did a fluffy ethnic cleansing on more than 600,000 English people by closing English schools. Those English parents with children in school who remained in Quebec, had their children seized in school and parents charged with Phony child endangerment charges, It took a court room defense to get the phony charges tossed out of court, Parents without legal funds had their children interned in shawbridge youth prison, until age 21. I had legal funds from our family business of Ornamental metal works, that catered to architects, engineers, designers in both commercial and residential building and home furnishing products. The Parti Québécois Separatist party intentions were to separate Quebec from Canada and isolate Eastern canada from the west. Russia constructed a huge embassy beside the PQ headquarters in Montreal, and likely funded the PQ’s ALL INCLUSIVE ELECTION FRAUD SYSTEM that created Quebecs One Party Rule, a DE FACTO communist state.
The socalled English Youth Protect Act was contracted out to the Ville Marie Social Service Center who subcontracted the job to so-called “ Jewish Social Service Center “ where more than 400 social workers were executing the plan to rid the province of Anglos. The routine was to intake the child and contact the parents who if they promised to leave quebec the child would be released and the false charges removed from the record. Shawbridge became a Youth Prison for Anglo parents who stayed in quebec. Their treatment of Anglo youth was horrific and those released were released into the hands of Pimps as underage prostitutes. The English Youth became a so-called skinhead clan, and Isabells teen age boyfriend was a bright young boy, the 1st time I saw him and the 2nd time I saw him he wandered the streets with his head bashed in, a few dozen indentations in his skull, and his bright young self was gone.
I was arrested 22 times and my wife always got me out with a good English lawyer who stayed behind to protect the English from Jewish Family Services who were likely Not Jewish and did not serve the families, they served the Parti Québécois and near 400 social workers were just doing the job assigned to them, seize the child and lay charges of child abuse. I fought them endlessly for 15 years, until 1994 when a 2 week trial that involved 5 social workers and a police officer filing complaints that I threatened their lives. The 1st week they all got up and testified, and just this once I represented myself and didn’t question their long explanations as to the detailed explanation of the socalled threats against their lives ( I took notes ) the 2nd week I simply asked the social workers to repeat the complaints that I threatened their lives, they were unable to remember the details surrounding their original compliants on record which also differed with their written complaints, or so the judge said when he told me that he would not put me back in prison, and a coup,e of weeks later the Ville Marie Social Service director met with me and told me the youth protection contract given to Jewish Family Social Services was revoked and the 400 social workers were no longer employed. Then a few months later after the PQ lost the 1994 ELECTION FRAUD so overwhelmingly that they were defeated and were no longer in power, the way Quebecs government changes power is that it takes a year for the new party to take over government. The Party Québécois had setup their own National government including “ Immigration Québécois “. I was arrested and held in a basement cell without a telephone, and after 2 weeks was simply erroneously deported to Sheboygan Wisconsin where I never lived under a compliant that I abandoned a woman with child in belly in 1974. Only thing is I went to work for northern electric company Microsystems International in Ottawa Ontario at the worlds 1st silicon foundry in 1971-2 and was married to my dear wife Constance Sheitoyan in 1973 and we had Isabelle in 1974. I presented the exonerating evidence ( Marriage License, Birth certificates of myself, my spouse, our daughter ) the judge who refused to allow the exonerating evidence in court ) which My court appointed Attorney said to say nothing, that I was certain to win on appeal. The judge kept me in solitary for a total of 8 months and I got out and went to Az. Where my Canadian associates and suppliers of materials set me up in business, an instant success. The a year after getting out of jail my mother called me and said she got a letter from the Sheboygan county public lawyer, the letter stated that I had 60 days to reply to this letter or the appeal would be dropped “ THE LETTER WAS DATED A YEAR BEFORE BEING SENT TO MY MOTHER. I called the Lawyer who hung up on me. Then a few days later a new probation officer showed up in Az. Arrested me and took me back to Sheboygan. ( a year or so earlier when passing through New Mexico I was assaulted while in my speed and my left arm was broken in 7 pieces and I was still receiving VA treatment several days a week ) when I explained this to the judge who would be forced to return me to Az. And resume treatment The new probation officer chipped in and said “ He is lying to try and stay outta jail, he said that he checked with the military and that I had never served “ The judge pretending anger sentenced me to 4 years in prison “
After 8 more months The Milwaukee VA picked me up and took me to a domiciliary where I spent the next year, followed up by 6 years in day treatment. Eventually the American Legion investigated and proved without a doubt that’s I was wrongfully prosecuted and deported when the Sheboygan judiciary colluded with the
Parti Québécois “ Immigration Québécois “ to the detriment of an American citizen committed an act of treason. The public lawyer either changed his name or went into another line of work and the Judge resigned his judge position, likely to avoid prosecution for treason.
Its becoming a dangerous world for those who stand up against wrongful governments