Who on earth is Robert Vye, you might wonder.

He hasn’t gigged or toured in years, has no CDs for sale. He doesn’t even busk on the street or play at farmerʼs markets.

Vye picked up the guitar at the age of nine influenced by Jimi Hendrix, and at the age of thirteen he started gigging in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. But in his early 20s, he walked away from gigging to pursue work as a hired studio hand for many producers around the Bay Area. After that, Vye mostly stayed home to play his guitar, and enjoyed a somewhat normal life style.

At age 25, Vye stopped playing the electric guitar, concentrating instead on the classical guitar. His repertoire reveals a wide range of interests, spanning all the idioms of music. His playing style shows a fusion of harmonies and classical guitar technique, with a very articulate right hand. In solo guitar music, he is proficient in the works of Baden Powell and Tárrega, Bach, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, & Rev. Gary Davis to name just a few.

For years Vye was content studying on his own and playing just for friends and family. But tragedy struck his life April 1st, 2015. Vye lost his long-time partner Roxsand Ceillo to suicide. Profoundly affected by this loss, losing his job and finding himself at the brink of financial ruin, Vye turned to music for salvation. He set out with nothing more than his guitar and his trusty dog Gypsy to find places to play, where he finds reason in life again, performing old country blues and gospel standards with such emotion that you feel you’re standing in a Mississippi juke joint in the mid 1920s.