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Hurting Each Other 5:440:00/5:44
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Southeast Texas Son 3:520:00/3:52
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Chaison Park 2:530:00/2:53
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Lock And Load 3:140:00/3:14
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Give Me Your Heart 3:410:00/3:41
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The Dead Sea 4:480:00/4:48
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Some Kind of Secret 3:570:00/3:57
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0:00/4:02
bio
AFTER “HIDING” FOR YEARS IN ANOTHER GENRE,
SOUTHEAST TEXAS BLUES/ROCK SINGER/SONGWRITER t.Roy RETURNS HOME TO HIS ROOTS,
As t.Roy releases ‘The Texas Grit EP’ – the perfectly titled, power packed teaser for a 16 track album - under the moniker t.Roy & The Smoking Section, the veteran singer/songwriter declares that he’s just “another Texas blues singer from Southeast Texas,” following in the long tradition of regional legends like Johnny & Edgar Winter, Janis Joplin, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and George Jones.
t.Roy’s connection to those roots drives the main narrative, yet it leaves out a fascinating aspect of his multi-faceted career. He’s been “hiding” in another genre, touring the world as an international recording artist writing and performing sacred music for decades, often living on the road 300 days of a year.
t.Roy’s musical origins are key to vibing with the raw, no holds barred authenticity of the dynamic five track EP recently released. On both sides of his family, every gathering was a hoe-down jam session, and when he was only four years old his grandfather brought him on a “tour” of the neighborhood, knocking on doors to sing Hank Williams classics.
t.Roy began playing six nights a week at the Foxy Lady Bar in Beaumont TX with a parental release before he was legally old enough to enter. He later moved to northward and became a staple of the Dallas rock scene for many years, producing a cable access TV program for 9 years called “Dallas Music Magazine” as his band was nominated as “Best Rock Band” by the Dallas Observer, and he wrote the theme song for the 1988 Texas Rangers.
In 2002, he signed to Sony/BMG/Provident label, Galilee of the Nations, and began touring the world non-stop for nearly two decades performing original songs in an obscure middle eastern sub-genre of sacred music.
Wanting a change of scenery for inspiration in 2017, t.Roy moved to Asheville, NC and began going out to jam sessions for the pure fun of it in this dynamic music city. It was there he discovered his love of audio production and started recording with his new Asheville NC friends and “The Smoking Section” was born. In the small dining area of his west Asheville apartment this band recorded 32 songs to be released in stages during 2023.
The songs on The Texas Grit EP serve as something of an introductory autobiography to t.Roy. The raucous opener “Southeast Texas Son,” featuring Beaumont area legendary guitarist Scott McGill, and takes a whimsical, nostalgic look at his youth “having fun just playing out in the hot Texas sun.” The hard-driving jam “Color Me Blu” tells the spirited story of a metalhead friend who made guitars and always wore the color blue. The poignant ballad “Chaison Park” recalls a painful childhood memory of abandonment. Though brassy and up-tempo, “Give Me Your Heart” tackles the heartbreak of unreciprocated love. The powerhouse final track “Some Kind of Secret” is a classic tale, told in vulnerable detail, of suspecting that a spouse is having an affair.
“Songwriting has always been a healing mentally therapy for me,” t.Roy says. “Most of these songs are very personal stories about relationships, and unfortunately for me they are true. Some were written long ago but never previously recorded, while others are about more recent situations. I taught myself audio engineering these past few years, and got these great musicians to help me put the songs into fixed form – and now I’m excited about the next steps.”
indie Source
Anne Hollister
The blues are as engrained in the spirit of American music as the entire country genre, if not more so, and when they’re put to work under the pressure of a Texas-style grit, you end up with something like The Texas Grit EP from t.Roy & The Smoking Section this February. Assaulting us with rigid grooves and tonally pleasing melodies is easy for any proper blues band to do, but trying to embody the spirit of what the aesthetic is all about takes something a little extra - which is exactly what t.Roy and his crew are bringing into the studio here. Say what you will of the scene in Nashville, but out in Texas, this is a gang keeping the tradition of great American music alive.
I’ve been listening to a lot of stock blues music for the better part of the last six months, but this is something that doesn’t just impress me - it jumps out of the speakers and asks me to swing along with it.
Anyone who loves the blues would be wise to take a peek at the ultra-easygoing work outlined in the five songs comprising The Texas Grit EP this February, and I don’t think I’m the only music lover who has taken note of its contents as well as the man and band who are giving them to us this late winter season. There’s nothing quite like the sweet sting of Lone Star musicality when you’re a long way off from the summer sunshine, and given the lack of excitement coming out of the American underground in 2023, this record is all the more a gem to be plucked from the treasure chest of unknown releases making its way down the pipes right now.
