Kevin Bronson on August 7th, 2020

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Roberto Ortiz — just Roberto when he releases music — is a singer-songwriter with polyglot influences and a remarkable story that has led him to today’s release of his first proper single “Dorrigo.”

A half-Black, half-Mexican kid who was reared by his grandmother in small-town Dunlap, Ind. (pop. 6,200), Ortiz dropped out of music school at age 18 and bicycled across the U.S. — twice. Then he pedaled to Mexico to find his family. Then he traveled to the Amazon jungle for a year to film a documentary. “It’s impossible for me to truly tell the story of what happened the last 4 years,” Ortiz says. “You can tell someone what it’s like to bicycle across a desert alone on nothing but sardines or the pangs of addiction, but I’d much rather write a song and shoot a TV show about it.”

In early 2019, he moved to Los Angeles (spending a couple months homeless), picked up his guitar and rededicated himself to writing songs. Since, he’s collaborated with Mark Foster, Grandson and Bekon, and “Dorrigo” was produced by Miro Mackie (St. Vincent, The Neighbourhood, Run River North) and Daniel Chae and mixed by Nathan Phillips. The first song from his forthcoming debut, “The Salvaje EP,” “Dorrigo” recalls the vibrancy of “Graceland”-era Paul Simon, and yes, he cites the album as an influence.

“Dorrigo” arrives with a lighthearted video directed by J. Logan Alexander in which Roberto does battle with the future, symbolized by a pugilistic cell phone. A prize fighter Roberto is not, but he gamely slugs it out.

“Dorrigo is a city in Australia and a song about a deep connection with a loved one who moved back home to Australia,” Roberto says of the song. “My inspiration came from the subsequent feelings of separation, isolation and the accompanying anxieties which go into overdrive every time she calls me up! Given today’s craziness and self-quarantine we are all in pain and I hope people can relate to mine.”

||| Watch: The video for “Dorrigo”