Roz Bell

If you can't quite pigeonhole Roz Bell's first single, "Yesterday Man," there's good reason. Raised in a small farming community an hour north of Toronto, Roz Bell's parents schooled him on country classics. "My parents were obsessed with country music and played it constantly, almost 24 hours a day when I was a kid," Roz says. " I have one older brother and we grew up knowing the lyrics to every country song."

Raised in a small farming community an hour north of Toronto, Roz Bell's parents schooled him on country classics. "My parents were obsessed with country music and played it constantly, almost 24 hours a day when I was a kid," Roz says. " I have one older brother and we grew up knowing the lyrics to every country song."

Still, like every good music-loving youngster, he had to find his own music. "As a kid I was into Rick Astley, Huey Lewis, Hall and Oates, '80s pop music and stuff like that,? Roz says. "And once I found hip-hop in '87-'88 I just abandoned everything else." Hip-hop's hold on Roz went deep. He started writing rap songs at age 13 before discovering thoughtful rock in high school, when he got a guitar and started writing pop songs.

This wildly diverse set of influences comes together on Roz's debut album, ?The First Sunbeams.? Despite this, Roz says, "I'm a fan of really direct songwriting. I love that style of writing. It's very pop and it's very simple, but done with the right angle it can be very smart can be very to the point." ?The First Sunbeams? is just that -- an album made up of short, simple stories, the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl sort of timeless songs that are the foundation for contemporary music.