Troy Breslow & The Company Band

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - Troy Breslow is a singer-songwriter from York County VA. Currently based in northern Williamsburg, Breslow continues to tour regularly throughout Virginia in spite of the economic impact of COVID-19. He joins us virtually with Jeremy Parks to perform an original song, "Local Boy".

Learn more at www.troybreslow.com. - WTKR

The opening act was the excellent young talent, Troy Breslow. He is a fine player. Young and, honestly, he appears a bit gawkish-looking with his rigid-thrusting glasses and youngish, somewhat generic surface. But, all of that dispels in an instant when you watch and hear him sing. A rich voice from the vaults of a Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard, the boy sings like a grown man, matured in years of Nashville, most of the songs fine originals.
His are songs with the maturity, poise, and understanding of a much older singer-songwriter. One of the songs is a truly original piece about being a Jewish cowboy singer. One or two surface changes, maybe a cowboy hat for example, Troy might become a country heart throb. - No Depression

The NorFOLK Festival came to downtown Norfolk, VA, for a second year, bringing truly outstanding music and musicians locally, regionally, and statewide. Held in O’Connor Brewing Company’s brewery at the edge of the Ghent neighborhood, the weather was threatening, causing many outdoor performances to move inside. But no one was daunted, and the weather became beautiful, if hot, after the morning’s flooded streets.
The Virginia Beach band Brackish Water Jamboree created and put on the festival, doing a nearly flawless job of a huge task, with the support of O’Connor and other area sponsors. I think it has been a singular and historic venture in Norfolk and the Hampton Roads area.
I was there some 12 hours, but still couldn’t catch all the acts. Here are some snapshots:
The Hackensaw Boys The headliners were spectacular. Enormous energy. Brilliant good old boys, beards and all, with unique and colorful charisma, their self-made percussion instrument in the middle. Young ladies in the crowd exploded to the stage to dance along. Old fans came, and new fans were made. I enjoyed a talk with the only remaining original band member, David Sickmen, and a shorter one with virtuoso fiddler, Ferd Moyse, afterward. They’re headed soon to Europe and a new album.
Brackish Water Jamboree These guys put on the whole deal. Their fiddler Rachel Gaither was a fine fixture in this potpourri of folk/country/bluegrass sounds and textures, quick and with well-written songs. Their Jamboree is the real deal and a whole lot of fun. Magnificent, generous, and hard-working hosts, too, with Paul Bidanset and Wes Russo instrumental in pulling the necessary strings. Russo delighted one young fan by playing his washboard into the crowd and directly to her as she danced with her friends.
Bob and Jeanne MacDougal Zentz A blast from the folk past and present. Bob, the maritime and Virginian iconic figure of Ramblin’ Conrad fame, played many authentic folk instruments. Bob and Jeanne are a pair for the ages, bringing a museum of music with them as well. Several guest artists from the area joined them, and a large crowd enjoyed their show.
Whiskey Wells Out of Richmond, my friend Graham Stole (of Graham Stone Music) and his wife, with a talented, country-voiced band, tore up the stage with some great rocking Americana. They featured fine voices and instrumentation, along with distinctive original tunes by Stole.
South Hill Banks Instant favorites, also from RVA, as they call Richmond. As one friend said, “ I had to get their album, they were the greatest.” They are a wonderfully fast and furious, solid Americana band, with fine songs and great musicianship.
Troy Breslow & The Company Band Always on top of his game, Breslow showcased his fine original, and they are truly original, tunes, such as the one about being a Jewish-cowboy singer. He brought his authentic yodels and, with a solid, polished country band behind him, Breslow rocked out.
Gordon Bradley With Gina Dalmas, of Gina Dalmas and the Cow-Tipping Cowboys, and other talented musicians, Bradley acted like he’d been doing this all his life. However, this new bandleader was unused to public performance. Nonetheless, he brought the goods, with original tunes and some smoking country covers. One standout performance, though, belonged, to Dalmas with a heaven-piercing Led Zeppelin tune, her voice doing all the ups and downs required.
Andrew Bertrand He brought together a very talented, veteran (young and old) group of area musicians to form his band. Bertrand, a fixture at the popular open-mic outings of The Cure in Old Town Norfolk, came out with a fine voice, good original and cover songs, and solid guitar. He thoroughly pleased an overflow crowd. He later played with Brackish Water Jamboree, helping out with guitar and backing vocals.
One of his players was Sean Heely, a fine young fiddler who was also a featured performer and played in several bands, including the Zentz’s. Heely was heading to Ireland the next day for a fiddle competition.
Mountaintide Everyone’s favorite Norfolk bank executive, New York City street busker, Hampton Roads concert and open-mic regular, and public broadcasting personality Jim Newsom, and his talented partner Holly Kirsten, made impassioned, yet gentle waves of sound on the O’Connor patio to an attentive crowd.
An occasion new to Norfolk and one created and driven by musicians themselves, brackish water brought fair skies and following seas to a stormy Norfolk weekend, as Brackish Water Jamboree filled a huge craft brewery with an outpouring of Virginia’s best songs. - No Depression

Troy Breslow already has put a few thousand miles on his Hyundai Accent since the start of the year.
The 22-year-old singer-songwriter from York County has been playing gigs all around Virginia and its bordering states, supporting the album he released last year called "Politics and Roadrage." He headed west to start the year, then came home for about 36 hours to do laundry before driving south to do more shows. "Part of it is the new record," he says, "but really, I just love traveling. Seeing new places is one of my favorite things ever. Honestly? I love driving, too. That old-time need to roam."
In a little more than a week, he will make the biggest drive of his life — about 700 miles from here to Nashville.
He's made that drive several times before. He calls the first trip "one of the most spiritual adventures of my life."
But this time will be different.
This time, it's a one-way trip.
Breslow is relocating to the country music capital of America. He is ready to challenge himself as a songwriter and as a performer, to see if he can survive and thrive in a musical mecca that is known as the City of Broken Dreams."I want to make a living, for one thing," he says matter-of-factly. "I want to at least make my rents. And I want to make friends, and meet people I might not otherwise meet. I want to get my foot in the door in as many ways as possible.
"I'm going to write more songs. You can't go to Nashville and not start writing. It happens every time I'm there. It's like there's an unknown mystic spirit that lives there and touches everyone who comes in. I truly believe that." But first, there's a matter of playing just a few more shows around his hometown. He'll be at Obici House in Suffolk on Thursday, at Oozlefinch on the grounds of Fort Monroe on Friday, and doing a "songwriter in the round" event with Jim Newsome and Lawrence Lambert on Saturday at the Starving Artist Cafe in Norfolk.
Breslow has been playing gigs and open mic nights around Hampton Roads for several years now. Longer than that if you date back to Tabb High School talent shows where he drew huge cheers with his take on the Bob Dylan songbook.
He knows he'll be back, to visit and to play, but on a spiritual level these are farewell shows. He finds himself reflecting on the many open mic nights he played at Cozzy's, and the warm influence of local songwriting guru Vaughn Deel. So many friendships.
"Getting to experience that all here is very special," he says. "I've got songs written about it that I plan to put on a record at some time. It's going to be a little bit emotional for me. Especially the show at Oozlefinch, because I'm going to have a lot of friends and family there. I guess I'll be up on stage thinking, 'see you all in six months.' "
Musical roots
Almost everyone who sees Breslow perform ends up commenting that he doesn't look the way he sounds. A wiry Jewish lad with eyeglasses, he sings with a rich country voice and frequently tosses in a yodeling nod to Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers.
"He's got this great voice, and he writes some nice tunes," says Mike Aiken, a songwriter who has featured Breslow at his annual acoustic festival in Smithfield. "He's not what you expect out of this persona. It sort of makes you sit up and take note."
Breslow has heard variations on that sentiment for a few years now. "I don't know how to take it," he says, but he is willing to assume it is a compliment until someone convinces him otherwise.
His father is a California native who settled in Hampton Roads when he retired from the U.S. Navy. His mother is from New Jersey. Breslow says he was "raised semi-Orthodox," and the first music he learned was Hebrew prayers. At age 13, he discovered Dylan, and everything changed. He became rooted in folk music, even after he took a liking to Rodgers and other seminal country influences.
"One day I was showing off a recording I'd done in high school, in line at Starbucks or Farm Fresh, before leaving for school in the morning," Breslow says. "The person told me, 'That's pretty good for country.' Up until this point, I had no idea I was a country singer."
His talents were well known to his classmates at Tabb. A video from the school's 2011 talent show is posted on YouTube, featuring a pint-sized troubadour with a guitar and a harp rack singing "It Ain't Me, Babe" to a loud and appreciative crowd. When he didn't have a stage, he would sit outside in the school commons and play to whoever walked by.
"Most of the time it was Elvis and Green Day, stuff like that," he says. "And they would say, 'Oh, Troy's playing again.' Pretty girls would walk by and bat their eyes a little. I would keep playing."
It was during his junior year that he began writing his own songs in earnest. Not long after, he began showing up at local open mic nights.
Chris Jacobson, who hosts a popular open mic at Victorian Station in Hampton and also plays fiddle for Mason Brown and the Shiners, has a vivid recollection of the first time he saw Breslow perform.
"He looked sort of timid," Jacobson says. "I later found out that he was a big deal at his high school, like a Pied Piper with his own little following, but that wasn't my impression at all when I first met him. "He seemed timid, but he was this powerful singer with a powerful presence. He made me turn around to look at him. It was like Hank (Williams) Sr. reincarnated. That's what it was like. Just riveting."
He progressed from open mics to appearances on local radio and TV, developing a following on the Peninsula. Last year he released "Politics and Roadrage," with some of the region's best musicians backing him. He received three nominations for ongoing voting for the VEER Magazine Local Music Awards, including album of the year and song of the year for the autobiographical title track, which he says is probably his favorite on the album.
"It's just such a fun song to sing," he says. "It tells you who I am. 'Hey, man, I'm a Jewish country singer and the first Southern man in my family.' "
Soon enough, he will be using that song to introduce himself to a new audience in Tennessee. - Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — Troy Breslow isn’t alone on stage anymore.
The country songwriter from York County, who performed as a solo act as he made the trek to Nashville and back, has put together a band and is seeing the benefits – both personally and professionally. “The best thing is to enjoy that camaraderie that you only get by playing music together,” Breslow said. “It’s one of the best gifts – even better than friendship, to be honest. But it’s more than that. As a songwriter I find myself frequently not totally knowing what to do with a song, and I’m lucky enough to play with a bunch of people who are better than me.”
Breslow and the Company Band will perform at 3 and at 4:15 p.m. Sunday at the Newport News Fall Festival at Newport News Park. As usual, Breslow will do a wide range of cover songs mixed with his own originals – material from his 2017 album “Politics and Road Rage,” which became popular on local radio stations, as well as new tunes that he is constantly working on.
But the songs pack more of a punch and reflect more of a range now that he is backed by Sean Parker on lead guitar, David Scudder on bass, Joe Mastrangelo on electric banjo and Kyle McCormick on drums. (The Company Band also features Muskrat Reames “when we can afford him,” Breslow says of the in-demand pedal steel player.)
Breslow, 23, had made a couple of attempts at forming bands that never came together cohesively. The current lineup clicked very quickly after he returned from from more than a year in Nashville. There was a lot he liked about Tennessee – the musical environment, the central location for a home base while on the road, etc. Breslow had first known Parker as the host of open mic events at the Yorktown Pub, and another new dad who understood the changes that Breslow was experiencing. Mastrangelo, whose electric banjo provides an unique dynamic, contacted Breslow about working together. McCormick, who has played in other local country bands, came on board, and Scudder had just returned home from many years in San Francisco and was looking to play. The band fell into place in barely a month’s time.
They’ve got a busy fall ahead, beginning this weekend with the Newport News Fall Festival – an annual event that draws 35,000 guests to the sprawling grounds of Newport News Park for a family-friendly festival built around an enormous juried craft show.
The band will also perform at the Poquoson Seafood Festival on Oct. 20, and at smaller gigs in Hampton Roads. He still plays solo shows from time to time, but the new album he has planned is definitely a group project with a very different groove than “Politics and Road Rage.”
“It’s going to have a whole new structure and arrangement and even rhythm,” Breslow said. “One of the new songs I had been working on was really folky, nothing you could play with a band. But one day at rehearsal we double-timed the chorus and took the song in a completely different direction with the guitar and drums leading the way. These guys have trained me to open my mind in that way.” - Daily Press