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Hurting Each Other 5:440:00/5:44
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0:00/3:58
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Ohio Woman 3:240:00/3:24
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Chaison Park 2:520:00/2:52
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Lock And Load 3:140:00/3:14
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The Dead Sea 4:480:00/4:48
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Let Me Down Hard 3:390:00/3:39
bio
t.Roy & the Smoking Section – Bio
t.Roy & the Smoking Section is the musical alias of Ted Pearce, a Texas-bred troubadour whose blues-rock grit and Americana soul light up the backroads of modern roots music. With a voice like smoked oak and a guitar that growls with Lone Star swagger, t.Roy delivers a sound that’s equal parts barroom brawl and front-porch confessional—think ZZ Top jamming with The Band, spiked with a shot of Chris Stapleton’s raw heart.
Born in Beaumont, Texas, Ted’s musical bones were forged in the ‘80s rock scene and fronting Dallas outfits like Side Effex—before a decades-long detour into songwriting and producing praise & worship music. In 2020 he started a project to learn audio engineering and needed songs of various genres during the “covid years” to practise on. With a stack of those laying around the basic tracks began to emerge. Several well-known jam scene musician of Asheville, NC were put to work playing the parts in t.Roy's tiny garage apartment to learn "the nerdy recording stuff". Then came the unexpected move home to Beaumont TX and landing with North Fork Studios. The result? Thirty-six tracks and counting, from the slide-soaked Texas Grit E.P. to the cinematic Hollywood Sessions, each one a testament to a lifetime behind the mic and now the mixing board.
Backed by a crack crew—Lenny Pettinelli’s barroom keys, Will Franke’s smooth and growling strings, and a rhythm section that hits like a slow-rolling freight train—t.Roy’s music is unpolished in spirit, yet pristine in execution. Tracks like “Southeast Texas Son” rumble his autobiographical tale with bluesy menace, while “Gypsy Queen,” a nod to his wife Hadassah Dove, weaves tender Americana melody into the grit. Lyrically, he’s a storyteller—outlaws, dreamers, and road-weary souls populate his songs, delivered with a gravelly warmth that’s as authentic as the dirt under his boots.
t.Roy and the Smoking Section are cutting through the noise with a sound that’s Texas-tough and universally human. Catch them wherever you crank your tunes.
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.
