JW ROY

Biography

The Dutchman has been a pro for over twenty years now. In this period, he went from writing and singing in English like he did on his debut album Round Here from 1997, to songs in his mother tongue and even in Southern dialect, to eventually get full circle singing in English again. It suits him all, but as a full-blooded Americana man the latter suits him best. Dry Goods & Groceries, the ‘book-and-cd-in-one’ album from 2015 is the most significant evidence. ‘This what I want.’ Suddenly he knew for sure. ‘I wanted to tell the story of my musical roots.’ A wide range of Dutch writers, novelists and journalists alike, explain in a superior way the musical inspiration of the artist JW Roy. His favourite singer-songwriter albums are still: Old No. 1 by Guy Clark, John Hiatt ‘s Stolen Moments and EVERYTHING by Townes van Zandt. And you can clearly hear his roots. Don’t say the man didn’t go to high school. The three months he stayed in Austin Texas in the nineties served as the jewel on the crown of his self-education, as he went to a gig every night.