Kenna & Cox

Kenna & Cox is an Australian blues-folk duo, based in Paris. Chris Kenna and Melissa Cox met in 2008 on a music scene in Paris. They are both from Australia, but they followed very different paths before settling in the City of Light Chris Kenna grew up on a farm in southwest Australia. He learned to care for animals with his brothers and built his first electric guitar with a piece of wood at the age of 14. Marked by the albums of Bob Dylan, the solos of Jimi Hendrix and the tragic death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris Kenna quickly wanted to become a rock star. From then on, he formed his own bands, opening for such big names in Australian rock as Midnight Oil, Men at Work, The Church and Ian Moss (Cold Chisel). Then he leaves everything to follow a French woman he met in the desert, taking with him a worn acoustic guitar and songs full of head. In Paris, he developed a style of acoustic blues that earned him performances in the city’s biggest venues, opening (among others) with Jeff Beck (Olympia), Peter Green (La Cigale), Tommy Emmanuel (New Morning), Zuchero (Zénith) etc.

For her part, Melissa Cox had been dreaming of Paris since she was ten years old, when she began learning classical violin in Sydney. She named her violin Claude, after Debussy, but soon explored other musical genres such as jazz, folk, rock and world music. Under the pseudonym of Black Sesame, she released an electro-pop album between two stays as a jazz singer in Tokyo and Guangzhou. But it was in Par

Kenna & Cox is an Australian blues-folk duo, based in Paris. Chris Kenna and Melissa Cox met in 2008 on a music scene in Paris. They are both from Australia, but they followed very different paths before settling in the City of Light Chris Kenna grew up on a farm in southwest Australia. He learned to care for animals with his brothers and built his first electric guitar with a piece of wood at the age of 14. Marked by the albums of Bob Dylan, the solos of Jimi Hendrix and the tragic death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris Kenna quickly wanted to become a rock star. From then on, he formed his own bands, opening for such big names in Australian rock as Midnight Oil, Men at Work, The Church and Ian Moss (Cold Chisel). Then he leaves everything to follow a French woman he met in the desert, taking with him a worn acoustic guitar and songs full of head. In Paris, he developed a style of acoustic blues that earned him performances in the city’s biggest venues, opening (among others) with Jeff Beck (Olympia), Peter Green (La Cigale), Tommy Emmanuel (New Morning), Zuchero (Zénith) etc.

For her part, Melissa Cox had been dreaming of Paris since she was ten years old, when she began learning classical violin in Sydney. She named her violin Claude, after Debussy, but soon explored other musical genres such as jazz, folk, rock and world music. Under the pseudonym of Black Sesame, she released an electro-pop album between two stays as a jazz singer in Tokyo and Guangzhou. But it was in Paris that she wanted to live and a scholarship to study film music composition at the École Normale de Musique allowed her to realize her dream. Melissa quickly joined artists like Elliott Murphy and Olivier Durand, Inga Liljeström and Delaney Blue, playing violin with them. One evening, during a jam session in Paris, she was captivated by a deep and scratchy voice singing over an old house in the countryside. The singer was dressed in black, with long hair and cowboy boots. He came to talk to her during the break and offered to play a song with him. They played together until sunrise. Since then, they have not left each other.

Kenna & Cox have recorded three albums together: «One night in Paris» (2012 - live album); "Long way home" (2016), and their latest studio album with a full band, "Shipwrecked" (2020).

Together, Kenna and Cox have performed at festivals across Europe, and opened for Alabama 3 at the Tripod in Dublin.