Manitoba Live Music Event

About

Kevin Roy is a nature-loving alt-country singer/songwriter from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who has been compared to Hank Williams, Neil Young and Corb Lund.  Roy, a former Industrial Arts teacher, is proud to announce the independent release of his debut full length album, Heartworn Highways. The record will be available on iTunes, Bandcamp, CD, via streaming services, and independent record stores beginning September 23rd, beginning with an album release show at Winnipeg's home of live music, the West End Cultural Centre, followed by a prairie tour with musicians Ian Cameron (pedal steel) and Madeleine Roger (harmony/guitar). 

When Roy makes a record, he calls all his friends and makes it a party. It’s this prairie sense of community that informs his debut full-length, Heartworn Highways, the upbeat and thoughtful Americana-glazed follow up to 2014’s Taller Than the Trees EP. Re-teaming with co-producer Lloyd Peterson (Weakerthans), Roy made the record at Winnipeg’s Paintbox Recording with a host of Winnipeg music scene luminaries, including William J. Western (co-producer of Del Barber’s JUNO-nominated Prairieography) on pedal steel, Crooked Brothers’ honorary member Daniel Bertnick on drums, and Red Moon Road’s Daniel Peloquin-Hopfner on banjo. Vocalists Madeleine Roger (Roger Roger) and Amelia Peterson supply the golden harmonies. With most of the instruments captured live-off-the-floor, it feels as though the listener is right in the room with Roy and co., soaking in the twanged-up tunes.    

 “The music of Kevin Roy pairs nicely with a warm cup of tea and a heavy knit sweater…two minutes in you’ll realize you already subconsciously began boiling your water.” – Paige Kreutzwieser, The Carillon, Regina

Mastered by JUNO-winner Jamie Sitar, the recordings have a clean kick that sounds like old country through brand new speakers. Roy’s vocals have a youthful charm and a world worn confidence to them — aged just right to deliver such upbeat tunes as “Same Old Sky” and the barn-burner “Prairie Fire.” Then there’s “The Mighty River” — a thoughtful and sparse tune inspired by the Red River Valley and the Alberta floods, given just the right amount hope and regret from this gifted singer. 

The title track “Heartworn Highways” is a murder ballad written using almost exclusively old outlaw country song titles, teasing the works of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Townes van Zandt and others, proving that Roy can have just as much fun paying tribute as he can while blazing his own trail.