rescuing musical virtue in distress.
Four albums in and still sounding like the bastard sons of Steve Earl and Ryan Adams and like those two purveyors of alt-country, The Southern Sessions is brimming with songs that straddle the country/rock divide. Someone once told me that the difference between country music and Americana is the boots. The former sports shinny, Crome... Continue Reading →
The title may suggest some sort of raggle-taggle, clattering country infused bluegrass, but Billy Roberts and his musical posse are in much slicker territory that it might first suggest. Well, I say slicker, all things are relative, and he has always come from a rough and tumble, bar band sort of place rather than the... Continue Reading →
Genres are tricky things, full of implication and assumption. Pop music isn’t always popular, soul bands don’t always connect deep down and not all blues is melancholic. Similarly the term Americana might imply that it is a sound taken from the American music psyche or that references past glories from that country. But maybe some... Continue Reading →
Sitting here slightly fragile after a night watching a Dallas rocker with a country swagger tear a hole where the stage in an English venue used to be, the latest release from Billy and the boys feels like the perfect after party music. Not that I have the energy to party. But that same blend... Continue Reading →
Blurring lines and subverting expectation is the job of every musician worth his salt and the fact that Billy Roberts both obscures the distinction between alt-country and garage rock and does so from a whole different cultural heartland, shows that he is all too aware of that. By rights this should be an East Nashville... Continue Reading →
With the popular resurgence of alternative takes on the classic American country rock sound, I find myself dealing with terms such as Anglicana or British-Americana, which seek to describe that odd hybrid of the formers take on the latters traditional sound. If Billy Roberts and the Rough Riders are the Antipodean equivalent of such a... Continue Reading →