“You can talk to so many guitar players my age and we all remember the same moment,” Essix said. “It was at that moment I knew that I wanted to play guitar. I wanted to be like these guys.”
Essix has been scheduled as the featured performer for the Sylacauga City Schools Foundation’s “Jazz Night” on Tuesday. He said his five-piece band will perform songs including original tunes and classic Motown-era recordings.
The recording artist’s career has produced 14 albums and taken him across the globe, most recently a tour that included India and the island of St. Lucia.
But the Birmingham native and Alabama Music Hall of Fame inductee’s sound is rooted in southern gospel and country.
While recording his 2000 album “Southbound,” Essix began to reinvent his approach to music and found something that was truly him.
“I had been struggling with coming up with a signature sound to my music,” he said. “Ultimately, I think I wasn’t being really true to who I was as an artist and an individual. The moment I decided I would be, I began to draw on all of the influences I grew up on as a kid.
All of the records subsequently have that kind of flavor. I think it has been great, it’s kind of my trademark sound.”
His sound has served him well in recent years. The latest release by Essix, entitled “Birmingham,” stayed in the top ten on the smooth jazz charts for nearly fifty weeks in 2009.
“It did really well,” he said. “We had a single from that record that did extremely well on radio. The record was the number one independent smooth jazz record in the country for seven weeks.”
Greg Atkinson, co-chair of the foundation’s fundraising committee, recently said that money raised from the event helps provide funding to local schools. He said it also provides “first-class entertainment.”
“There are a lot of things that the teachers need for the kids that they just don’t have the money for anymore,” he said. “[Essix] has played in Europe and all over the U.S. He has been good to help us out with this the last few years.”
This will be the fifth time Essix has been a part of the fundraiser. He credited Atkinson for bringing him back to Sylacauga to perform at the function.
Essix said Atkinson had been a longtime advocate of his band and his music.
“Greg has been a tremendous supporter of what I do as an artist,” he said. “I think he takes a great interest in his community and in furthering jazz music. I really do it because he keeps calling me.”
The Foundation fundraiser will be held at Marble City Grill from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets are $50 and are available at the door.
Event organizers said for tax purposes, $30 of each ticket can be considered a donation. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served and a silent auction will also be held.
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