Keyboardist Ronn Cobb is a Fort Worth native, a tall, thin man with the strong, wiry musculature that comes from years of hard living. He has a genial attitude, a dose of weariness, and a persistent desire to play.
Though he’s calling Fort Worth home again, Cobb has played and lived in many different places, including Martha’s Vineyard, Santa Barbara, and across the pond, working with the likes of James Taylor, Christopher Cross, and Delbert McClinton. “But I never wanted to be the big rock ‘n’ roll star,” he said. “I liked my privacy too much. I wanted to be, you know, the man behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz.”
Cobb was born in 1957. His mother, Penny, worked at the church the family attended – All Saints Episcopal – and his father, Patrick, was a plumber. Cobb developed an interest in music early on. His dad was also a drummer, and Cobb’s uncle Kenneth played upright bass for Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, the Light Crust Doughboys, and several other immensely popular swing and big-band acts. Those, along with the works of Bach, were Cobb’s biggest influences, instilling a love of “very harmonically pleasing music.”
He learned to play the piano at age 3 and shortly thereafter joined the boys choir at church under the Rev. Jack Noble White. Despite Cobb’s passion for music, he originally planned on becoming a priest. But White put the kibosh on that. “He told me, ‘Ronn, anyone can be a priest, but God gave you a gift for the piano.’ “
After graduating from high school in 1975, Cobb began playing with local bands. His reputation got around, and one day he got a call from fellow Fort Worth native McClinton, who was looking for a keyboardist. “Just like that,” Cobb said, “the phone rings, and your life changes.”
Cobb toured with McClinton for three years, playing upward of 300 shows a year.
He quit McClinton’s band to return to Fort Worth and get married. He formed a rock band, The Skintights, who not long after starting out got a call from Kate Taylor, sister of legendary singer-songwriter James Taylor. “She said she was looking for a Delbert McClinton-like band, and we were all ready,” Cobb said. “Again, just like that, the phone rings, your life changes.”
Cobb moved to Martha’s Vineyard in ’79 and for the next several years worked closely with the Taylor clan and toured with James. In Chicago during the filming of The Blues Brothers, Cobb got to hang out with stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.
By 1981, however, years of hard partying and long tours had worn Cobb out. He got divorced in ’81 and moved to Santa Barbara in ’84 to work with his older brother, Randy, a guitarist. They wrote music for the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival. Cobb lived in Santa Barbara until 1990, when he got a call to work with Christopher Cross. Cobb worked with the author of “Arthur’s Theme,” “Ride Like the Wind,” and “Sailing” for four years.
In the ’90s, he found himself back in Fort Worth caring for his ailing mother, who died of cancer in 1996. The following year, Cobb remarried and moved to England. (He got divorced again in 2001.) All the while, he was gigging when he could. “After all that I thought, ‘Screw music. Look where it got me,’ ” he said.
Attempting to lead a “normal” life, he moved back to Fort Worth and went to work for Lockheed Martin in 2003. But after hurting his back and being laid off, he returned to what he knew best. He’s been getting by on work with small local outfits, playing solo piano gigs at high-end restaurants, and working with the Fairmount Music Collective, an informal group whose mission is to bring about positive change in the community by working with young local musicians.
Considering Cobb’s experiences through the years, the kids are getting the benefit of someone with the equivalent of a Ph.D. in the music biz.
