A promotional press photograph showing rock musician J. Roddy Walston. Captured from a high-angle overhead perspective inside a wood-paneled recording studio, singer and multi-instrumentalist J. Roddy Walston stands centered behind a complex semicircle setup of keyboards and analog synthesizers, including a Yamaha synthesizer and a Sequential Dave Smith OB-6. Wearing over-ear headphones, round glasses, and a tailored burgundy suit jacket over a patterned collared shirt, he rests his hands on a keyboard with microphones angled toward him under studio ambient lighting.
J. Roddy Walston Credit: jroddywalstonmusic / Facebook

Rocking a piano is a lost art in rock and roll, but J. Roddy Walston has it figured out.

With his new Automatic Band backing him, the 43-year-old is the kind of frontman that can get a room sweating after just three songs, thanks to chaotic and rollicking performances that are rooted in the blues and honky-tonk, then colored with elements of Southern rock and Americana.

Tickets to see J. Roddy Walston at Bayboro Brewing in St. Petersburg on Friday, Nov. 6 are still available and start at $31.99.

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This article appears in Oct. 29 – Nov. 04, 2026.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...