Blues Moon Radio Interview with Roy Rogers Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I'm excited about tonight's show... we were honored to be asked to interview Roy Rogers by the fine folks at Blind Pig Records, who bring us so many great artists. Roy collaborated with The Doors' keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, for Translucent Blues, which is decidedly a departure from straight Blues, but one I think Blues and Rock fans alike will enjoy.

Roy and I chatted about his roots and early beginnings, and started our interview - off the record - talking about his name and the inevitable associations with Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy. Interestingly, my show co-host, RockyDawg-BluesDefender, who is usually silent in the recording studio, barked up a storm during our interview - in such a way that I had to decide between his "voice-over" staying on or losing some great content by Roy. The singing cowboy Roy had a German Shepherd named Bullet, and I cannot help but find the humor in the fact that the only time my German Shepherd interrupted a recording was for Roy Rogers, the Blues slide guitar legend. I probably should have distinguished the two for RockStar... :) I expect he thought he was just sayin' "howdy" to Bullet's Dad! I'll do better with my prep in the future, but enjoy the barking... and Roy's response.

The show will kick off with some music with a theme of leaving; we'll try to fit in some birthday tributes and we'll hear from Roy and from the new CD, as well as from some of his biggest influences - Bo Diddley, Robert Johnson and  John Lee Hooker (he produced four of The Hook's albums, btw, and knew him well - perhaps we can chat with him more about those experiences another time).

The show starts at 6, and the interview will air around 7 p.m. EDT/USA - in most countries that is -5 GMT.

You can tune in at http://wusc.sc.edu - then follow the link in the top left quadrant of your screen - tune in early to get a slot - sometimes we hit our streaming limit pretty early. It's an alternative station, and the show before mine has some interesting music; the show after mine features covers of famous songs done in interesting new ways so stay tuned after I sign off and make a night of it!