Bio

Born in San Francisco and raised in Berkeley a generation into the free speech movement, Owen Roberts' songwriting has been called "a gritty, folksy acoustic melange that manages an edgy side." Since moving back to the west coast after five years in New York and two in Italy, Owen has been playing as a duo both locally and on the road with lap steel guitarist Greg Peters, aka the Doghouse Brewer, creating a sound much larger than the size of the band.

Influenced by Manu Chao's multi-lingual songwriting, Xavier Rudd and Ben Harper's swampy lap steel guitar, Nick Drake's thoughtful lyrics, Leo Kottke's fingerstyle guitar and Sam Cooke's soul, the duo slides smoothly from gritty and hard hitting to mellow and whimsical.

While living in Brooklyn in 2007 Owen released Bay to Maples, an independent bi-coastal collaboration with an old friend, guitarist and cellist Yair Evnine. They recorded the record in Oakland, San Rafael, San Francisco, Tivoli (NY) and Brooklyn. The songs on the record came from Owen's experience moving from the Bay Area out to New York where he lived both upstate on the Hudson River in the small, progressive town of Tivoli and in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood.

From 1999-2002 Owen lived in Bologna, Italy where he became fluent in the language and began writing songs in Italian. Singer songwriters Fabrizio De Andre and Francesco Guccini came to influence his songwriting as much as Bruce Springsteen, Leo Kottke and Mark Knopfler had earlier on. He played shows around Bologna and Southern Italy and collaborated with the Bermuda Acoustic Trio to record a few songs at their studio in Modena.