5635780

Hi. I am Roy Brooks and I play guitar. You can hear some of my music on my MySpace Music page. It is in my top "friends". I was born in Midwest City, Oklahoma in 1962 while my dad was stationed at Tinker Air Force Base. My earliest memory is John F Kennedy's funeral procession on TV. We lived in Ankara, Turkey and Arlington, Virginia until my dad retired in 1971. We then moved to Samson, Alabama. While living in Samson I took up guitar at the age of 13 in 1975. My first live performances were on Farley Taylor's Taylor Made Opry radio show in Dothan, Alabama. Within a few years, before I finished high school, I was gigging pretty regularly with Andalusia, Alabama-based country band Easy Action. We played shrine halls, VFWs, store openings, fairs, and bars all over Alabama and northwest Florida. Occasionally we backed up country singers Michael Twitty and Grand Ol Opry member Hank Locklin. Easy Action's pedal steel player, Faron Brewer, taught me lead guitar and turned me on to records by New Riders Of The Purple Sage, King Crimson, and the Grateful Dead. I was also in the marching band (tuba) but did not march my senior year because I was gigging most weekends. After high school I got an associates degree in music from Enterprise State Junior College, Enterprise, Alabama. While at ESJC I played with Southern Breed, a party band that played military bases, motel lounges, and bars around Alabama and northwest Florida. We played at least once a month at Mr B's in DeFuniak Springs where I had alot of fun adventures. I also played with Speedy Morris & Southern Impact as well as a few other bands whose names I don't remember.In 1983 I moved to Ft Walton Beach, Florida to play with Wayne "Po Boy" Cobb & The Circle C Cowboys at their house job at El Villas, right down the street from Jimmy's Hideaway. Not long after that I played with Nyman Furr & The Little Juice Band at Sil's Place in Ft Walton Beach, the Bowery in Destin, and several other places along the Redneck Riviera. I lived in Ft Walton Beach three different times in the eighties playing guitar with several different bands including Prizm, Pax & The Maniacs, and Shaky Ground. A few of the bands I played with were road bands that played in motel lounges, military base clubs, and honky tonks all over the south- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee. Shaky Ground, a country band based out of Wayland, Kentucky, picked me up in Florida and had me gigging in Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Montana, and Ohio.Between road jobs I managed to study drafting at Douglas MacArthur State Technical College in Opp, Alabama. While at MacArthur I played some with Easy Action again and with Strictly Business and Royce & Joyce & The Countrymen as well as several other bands that played in bars around southeast Alabama. For less than a year I lived in Marianna, Florida and worked at UniMac. While there I played with a band called Mr Natural as well as several other bands whose names I don't remember.Toward the end of the eighties I grew tired of the financial instabilities of my chosen profession and joined the Navy. From 1989 to 1993 I was on the USS Semmes DDG-18 and the USS Mount Baker AE-34 both homeported in Charleston, South Carolina. While in Abu Dhabi and Dubai I got turned on to Duane Eddy and the Ventures.Once I got out of the Navy I worked during the day and started gigging again at night with blues bands in bars around Charleston. I played with Mick Mercury & The Meteors, Walkin Mike Wolk, and Juke Joint Johnny. And I played with country band Texas Connection. From 1994 to 1999 I played with Smoky Weiner & The Hot Links, a fairly popular area blues band at the time that also played a bit of surf music and rockabilly.In 1999 I quit my last day job and began playing music full time again. For a few months I played with Rochester, NY-based Buford & Smokin Section. A couple of the cats in that band used to be in the band Smokehouse on Bob Greenlee's Kingsnake Records label. I played with Buford & Smokin Section around Charleston at Bob's Ladson Tackle Shop and a little bit in upstate New York including Rochester's Dinosaur Barbeque. When in Charleston I played in the band that hosted the jams at Momma's Blues Palace with the legendary gospel producer/bass player Wayne "Jazz" Murrell. From August 1999 until they closed in early 2004 I was in the house band at Momma's Blues Palace two to five or six nights a week.When Momma's Blues Palace closed I played in a few different bands around Charleston, SC- party band Second Wind, eco-rock band Flatwoods Salamanders, rockabilly and old school country band Skye & The Sputniks, blues band Smoky Weiner & The Hot Links, and bluegrass/rock/jam band Decorated Dirt. And I played duo gigs with one of my favorite musicians, John Krucke.In 2006 I wrote a guitar method book, The Guitarist's Manifesto, which sold out not too long after it was printed. I am currently in the process of revising it for a second printing.In July 2007, after my wife Michelle was hired as a chemistry professor at the University Of Maryland, we moved to Beltsville, Maryland about twenty minutes from DC and about an hour from Baltimore. Since moving here to Maryland I have gigged pretty regularly in Maryland and Virginia with Blu Lou & Friends, Mike Lapadula & Lost Souls, the Richard Marcus Band, and Billy Clements. Currently I play guitar with Bo Weevil & Rottin Cottin.