Purchase Roy Roberts "Man with a Message" CD and a portion for each sale will benefit Visitation Hospital. To order a copy send an email to Roy Roberts at RoyRober@bellsouth.net. Cost is $15.00 plus shipping. Roy will donate $5.00 of every CD sold to Visitation Hospital Foundation.
About Roy:
Roy Robers became hooked on music while growing up in a small Tennessee town, listening to blues and and ryhthm and blues on radio station WLAC out of Nashville. Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me to Do" was the clincher, and at the age of 14, Roy worked on a nearby farm to earn the money fo rhis first guitar, a mail order Sear's Silvertone. When he turned 18, he moved to Greensboro, N.C. to live with an uncle. There he had another inspiration to become a professional musician. Roy sharpened his skills while playing in makeshift bands, and landed a job with local hero Guitar Kimbers' Untouchables. Before long, Roy was backing up major artists, who came through town. One of those artists, Solomon Burke, took young Roy under his wing after letting him sit in as bass player, during a local gig. He was soon handling the guitar chores behind the future soul legend. Roberts subsequently picked up touring gigs with such luminaries as Eddie Floyd, "Little" Stevie Wonder, Dee Clark, and Otis Redding, while fronting his own band, the Roy Roberts Experience, on the regional club scene and Southeastern beach town circuit.
Roy began to cut records in the mid-sixties, staying mostly behind the scenes as a session man. The tragic death of Otis Redding inspired him to step up to the microphone with a song dedicated to the late crooner. During the disco years, Roy turned to country music, touring wiht the great O.B. McClinton. After a brief hiatus from the music scene, Roy built a recording studio in Virginia in 1989, where he produced records by regional gospel artists and cut a gospel record of his own.
One day in the early nineties, he heard a young Robert Cray singing the bules on the radio. "That cat's got my style," he declared and got the blues fever once again. Roy recorded five albums throughout the nineties, and just released his sixth album on his own Rock House Records label. The album, "Burning Love," has already received praise of critics and music fans alike. Besides recording his own material, Roberts produced albums for the label by Priscilla Price, Lou Pride, Chick Wills, Skeeter Brandon, and Floyd Miles. Roy continues to record and produce records for his label, and tours the U.S. and Europe regularly. He has earned his place among the finest artists playing blues today, and "Burnin' Love" should be the vehicles to drive him to the door of blues royalty.
