Album Notes

Roger was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on a hot summer night in August. His father Ray Bartlett, the announcer for the nationally-syndicated radio show, The Louisiana Hayride, announced his birth to the coast-to-coast radio audience setting off a chain of events that continues today. His dad, besides sharing the Hayride stage with such legends as Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Johnny Horton and others, hosted his own show, Groovey Boy the Boogie Master, featuring the records of Rhythm and Blues and Jazz artists like Muddy Waters, Johnny Otis, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. These were the musical influences that rocked Roger to sleep at night and played throughout the day.

A few of Roger's credits include stints as a sideman with cult favorites Jimmy Buffett and David Ippolito - That Guitarman from Central Park, his rockin' blues band Hell's Kitchen, the classic horror movie "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," the Sci-Fi movie, "The Nuke Bros," and his musical, "Cowboy Cafe."

As a singer/songwriter/lead guitarist Roger leads his band Hell's Kitchen delivering contemporary music that tips a hat both to the traditional blues forms and also to modern R&B styles. Roger and the guys have been playing up and down the east coast delighting fans. Roger also appears as a solo performer.

Roger cut his teeth playing roadhouses in Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana playing every kind of music from James Brown to James Taylor, from B.B. King to Queen, developing an unmistakeable, but eclectic, style.

This diversity lead to gigs with the jazz-rock sounds of The Black White and Blues Band, from North Texas State, playing Dallas clubs. Roger's first foray into writing songs in Dallas in "Baccus." The acoustic vocal group The Outlaw Brothers that took Roger and his two partners to Nashville, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Little Richie Jarvis and Good Home Cooking in Nashville playing the military base circuit in Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. Teaming up with Bill Callery and Barry Walsh to form the acoustic group Lusaza that took Bill and Roger to Austin, Texas. Down in Austin, when Lusaza broke up, Roger happened to hook up with Jimmy Buffett for some of the most memorable gigs of his life. When Roger amicably left the Coral Reefer Band he ended up in New York City where he's been ever since. Playing gigs with different incarnations of his bands, doing studio work as a guitarist, producer and recording engineer, and writing music for film, TV and CDs.