RANDY ROGERS
Randy Rogers was raised in Cleburne, Texas, the son of a Baptist preacher and a teacher's aide. His father regularly played guitar and sang with his best friend at the family home, and his great-grandmother taught him how to play the piano when he was 6 years old. By age 11, he was writing songs and teaching himself to play chords on guitar. His love for music grew over the years as he began to listen to artists like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Don Williams, the Beatles and even Pearl Jam. He began experimenting with his live show when his high school garage band performed a Stone Temple Pilots cover in a talent show. Rogers went on to work as a sideman for several years, playing guitar and singing harmony vocals. His first two years as a sideman made him realize that he wanted to form a band and treat each member as an equal. After years of playing the songwriter circuit in San Marcos, Texas, and performing with friends and fellow musicians, the Randy Rogers Band began to take shape. Kent Finlay, songwriter and owner of Cheatham Street Warehouse in the small college town of San Marcos pulled a young Rogers out of the club's weekly songwriter's circle and told him he could have his own night if he could put a band together. Less than two months after the Randy Rogers Band's first rehearsal, they cut their debut record of original songs, Live at Cheatham Street Warehouse, in 2000. The current lineup -- Rogers on vocals and rhythm guitar, guitarist Geoffrey Hill, fiddle player Brady Black, drummer Les Lawless and bassist Jon Richardson -- has been together for more than three years, going back to Rollercoaster, the band's second studio effort, produced by Radney Foster. After months of meetings with every label in Nashville, the band signed with Mercury Nashville, sealing the deal at Cheatham Street Warehouse.