I met Bill Roberts last February.  His band, The Red River, played at my friend Xiaotong’s house in Coventry through the powers-combined of STG and super-luck.  They played a beautiful set, in the kitchen.  And then we drank hot cocoa and played an epic game of SCATTeRGORIeS.  (To say Bill was competitive would be putting it lightly; but then several of us were.)

In person, Bill can be seriously funny.  And direct.  In song, he can be clear, blue-tinted, and maybe about to crumble.

In “Blueberry Hill” Bill sings reminiscences, plain things, things I can’t quite make out and things I know I’ve done: “Now I’m driving back / I stop and get some gas / I tried to quit smoking / but I give in and get a pack.”  And he sings these things in his plain voice, and also through the whole thing with this shiny voice like a silken tent above him.  A robot’s voice.  And yet that voice breaks and strains and felt good to be alive or maybe alone, and you believe it either way, without lingering, without doubt.  Is it there just because Bill liked the way it sounded?  Was it just her heart, opened up?

And of course there’s the keyboards, their swell-and-dive, their purr-and-whir every few measures, and there’s bass rumbling and shaker shaking and bells choosing “dare.”  It’s a song of springing to life, and it’s so much more than it seems, and it’s exactly what I wanted to hear last winter and on into now.

(Bill writes better about this song on his blog; his most recent song, “The Pact”, is tipsy and tangerine)

(p.s. I made a mix; e-mail me if you want it)