eMusic

Start Your Trial

Phil Roy

Phil Roy

Rate it!

Avg: 3.5 (4 ratings)

  • Years Active: 2000s

Biography

Phil Roy grew up in Philadelphia during the '70s, when Philly soul ruled the airwaves. As a young guitar player (starting at age nine, his teacher was in Gamble & Huff's house band), hearing jazz from John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock led Roy to study at Berklee. It was at Berklee that he realized he didn't have the chops to make it as a jazz guitarist, but a class on songwriting opened up another avenue in music for him. After writing some songs, Roy moved to Los Angeles, where he put together Carrera, which was then signed and dropped by Warner Bros. after one album. The band changed names and was signed and dropped by EMI after one album. Roy then gave up on the performance end of music and became a staff writer for several publishers, achieving some success by having his songs performed by Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Widespread Panic, and others. Even so, Roy was feeling unfulfilled, realizing "that I was writing songs to get on commercial radio when I wasn't even listening to commercial radio!" He decided that writing and recording an album of his own was the thing to do. His debut, Grouchyfriendly, was recorded in 2000 and managed to sell 8,000 copies without a distributor, leading to his being named 2002 Independent Artist of the Year by Musician's Atlas magazine. He followed it up with Issues + Options, which was then picked up by Or Music and re-released in May 2003. After a breif hiatus from the studio, Roy returned with Great Longing in May 2007.
— Sean Westergaard , All Music Guide

“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”


Rolling Stone
Start Your Trial

Recently Viewed

Back
Forward

© 1998-2009 eMusic.com Inc. eMusic and the eMusic logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks in the USA or other countries. All rights reserved.

All Music Guide © 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC

Facebook®, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia® are registered trademarks of their respective owners, Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Neither Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. nor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. are partners or sponsors of eMusic. eMusic uses the Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia API but is not endorsed or certified by Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. eMusic does not pre-screen, monitor, endorse nor assume any liability for websites, contents, products, services or claims made by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia®.

Legal or copyright question regarding Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Wikipedia content on eMusic? Please email us.