New York Times
Julie Salamon
January 23, 2004

Heeding at Last the Song Itself

He moved to Los Angeles, cooking at a falafel place on Melrose Avenue to support himself -- until his father visited him and told him to quit and focus on his music. When Mr. Roy objected, he recalled, ''My father got choked up and said, 'What have I worked so hard for my whole life if I can't share it with my sons?' ''

But not even manifest parental pride and love could temper the outsize expectations created by the world in which Mr. Roy eventually traveled. At 40 he felt his career was at an impasse because he had never achieved a No. 1 hit. ''Great people were singing my songs, but I lived in a world where what mattered was how many records do they sell,'' he said. ''One day, I realized that it took me 17 1/2 years to reach No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the highest I had ever charted. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was writing songs to get on commercial radio when I wasn't even listening to commercial radio. I was making music for everyone but myself.''

Mr. Roy was unhappy for another reason, too. ''I'd been writing love songs my whole life and had never had a relationship that lasted three years,'' he said. ''My heart was aching because that's what I wanted. It drove me nuts.'' That yearning would be echoed in a haunting ballad called ''Hope in a Hopeless World'' in which Mr. Roy sings:

You gotta listen to the voice inside you
That speaks of love
Don't compromise
Realize
That time is passing by.

It didn't help his despairing frame of mind that a big movie deal fell through. Mr. Roy considered a complete career change. Though he gave up the falafel job, he continued to cook for fun. That talent, he said, he acquired from his mother, who made a perfect roast chicken. Preparing meals for friends was his way of socializing. He began collecting catalogs from culinary academies, thinking he might become a professional chef.

Instead, in 2000, he turned his life upside-down another way. He sold his motorcycle, his car and a piece of art to pay for studio time and recorded his own album, which he then distributed himself. The album, ''grouchyfriendly,'' got radio play and notice from other musicians, including Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. He sold 8,000 copies -- and found a wife named Abby.

She had sent him an e-mail message after hearing ''Melt,'' which he wrote with Mr. Cage, a song whose lyrics describe a fierce, heartbroken love. ''She told me she'd been driving down the road in suburban Philadelphia and pulled to the side of the road and was weeping,'' he said. Then he clarified: ''She'd never e-mailed anybody before. She didn't even have an e-mail account but used somebody else's.'' They met on Nov. 29, 2000, a moment Mr. Roy memorialized in a short song called ''The 29th Day.'' Four months later Mr. Roy packed his belongings and headed East with his dog and his cat.

He and his wife married exactly one year after they met and settled in a small town not far from Philadelphia, where his landlord is his mother-in-law. ''I'm a little late to the game,'' said Mr. Roy, who was wearing an orange scarf his mother-in-law gave him. ''At 41 I got married. At 44 I'm looking to buy my first house. I want us to have a baby.''

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