Tré Burt was on a stage in Philadelphia in early 2023 when he got some bad news: his grandfather, a native of that very city, had passed away. This was not unexpected: for years, Tommy Burt had been coping with early dementia, and every time he saw him Tré he realised that another little piece of him had slipped away. The grandson had also started recording their last chats so that he could preserve those moments, however repetitive and fragmented they might be, before the possibility of having a conversation with his grandfather vanished forever. Traffic Fiction, the third album by Burt at Oh Boy Records - an unexpected musical reinvention deeply rooted in his new vision of classic soul - carries within itself a part of this relationship: the common thread linking the album's fourteen tracks is the music shared by grandfather and grandson.

The childhood of Burt in California has not been easy: due to his parents' divorce he is forced to move frequently between Sacramento and the Bay Area, listening to The Delfonics e Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye e The Temptations during long journeys in the company of his father. When he becomes a musician, he turns into a vagabond troubadour, who also draws on American folk and blues out of necessity: after all, there is no point in performing on the road with a full band behind you. These roots and compositional ambitions begin to emerge in 2021 in You, Yeah, Youthe first studio session of Burtand flourish in Traffic Fiction moving from the sweet country-soul surrealism of the title track to the rock of 2 For Tha Show.