Roger Tillison's first professional gig was at the VFW club in his hometown of Duncan, Oklahoma. The 15-year-old played trumpet on Night Train, Rock Around the Clock and Blue Suede Shoes with a rockabilly band Charlie Jones and the Stardusters.

A few years later, Roger quit school to join the army, where his passion for music got him into trouble right away. While training to be a radio operator at Fort Dix, NJ, the music-obsessed teenager skipped school regularly to hang out at the band barracks, trying to join up. His lack of interest in radio school bought him a 14-month hitch painting signs on a missile base in Korea. While stationed at Ft. Dix, New Jersey the seventeen-year-old often visited New York City, where he heard the likes of Cozy Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles and other jazz greats at Birdland and the Metropole.

After his stay in the Far East, Roger returned to Ft. Hood in Texas where hanging around the band barracks finally paid off. He spent his last year in the army in the HQ band, occasionally playing cocktail music at Austin hotels with some of his fellow players.

After his time in the military, Roger spent time in Dallas absorbing the jazz scene. He briefly played trumpet on a tour of Officers' Clubs in Sandy Sandifer's Big Band, before heading to LA to study illustration at the Art Center School. During his two years in art school, he studied jazz trumpet with Jane Sager, who taught Chet Baker and Herb Alpert.

About the time the tuition money ran out, a friend from Canada played Roger some LPs of up-and-coming folk artists such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez – changing his musical direction…

"When I left LA the folk music thing was just getting going," he said. "I got a guitar, learned a few chords and started playing folk songs in little clubs, first in Dallas and later in Lawton, Oklahoma." Lawton was an army town in the 60’s and during the Vietnam era was known for its nightlife. Roger began playing protest songs and other folk music in the Gallerie, Rudy Perez' coffeehouse and beer club catering to soldiers, bikers, hookers and hippies.

In the time-honored troubadour tradition, he also began traveling the country in cars that would often die on the road – hitchhiking when they did. With his buddy – beat poet Art Pruett – he went to New York and LA playing a few clubs, but he always returned to Lawton and the Gallerie, where he also began writing songs. During that time in Lawton, he began his association with Jimmy Markham, who was playing at the Tradewinds blues club with his band, the Scamps.

Back in LA, Markham introduced him to Leon Russell, then a session producer and the nucleus of a group of Oklahoma musicians including drummers Bill Boatman, Jimmy Karstein and Chuck Blackwell as well as other musicians Jim Keltner and J.J. Cale. Roger also wrote for Russell and his partner, Snuff Garrett. Roger and his then-girlfriend Terrye Newkirk started cutting records with Snuff Garrett Productions as The Gypsy Trips - eventually signed to Liberty Records. Around this time, Roger wrote a song for Herman's Hermits that became a hit for Gary Lewis. “You Don’t Have to Paint Me a Picture” reached #10 on the charts.

Roger eventually moved to the Villa Carlotta in LA where he participated in bathroom jam sessions with his friends and neighbors - including Rolling Stones tenor saxman Bobby Keys and Levon Helm (drummer for the Hawks-soon to become The Band). Those three, along with Davis and bassist Gordon Shryock nearly didn't return from their one and only formal gig – in a rough neighborhood in Watts only one year after the riots. Roger and Jesse Ed soon returned to Lawton, where they had a standing gig as a folk rock duo at the Gallerie for eight months or so.

Through his association with Levon Helm, Roger moved to Woodstock, NY, for a time, playing at the Sled Hill Café and hanging out with the other members of The Band – Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. During this period, Roger also played with other various musicians, including Paul Butterfield and Rod Hicks, and at benefits for the Hudson River Cleanup Project with Odetta and Pete Seeger.

In December, 1971 Jesse Ed Davis called Roger back out to LA to record Roger Tillison's Album for Atlantic Records. Also featured on the album were Stan Szeleste, Sandy Konikoff, Larry Knechtel, Billy Rich, Don Preston, Joey Cooper and Jim Keltner. After declining to tour without his band, Roger went back to Lawton. By this time, the Gallery was catering to a younger crowd and the folk era was over. In true Woody Guthrie style, he continued to travel around the country doing what work he could. Roger worked for a couple of years as an Illustrator for the U.S. Army at Ft. Sill, Ok. At another time he lived above Bob’s General Store in Eagle Nest, New Mexico while helping to build the country's first memorial to Vietnam vets in nearby Angel Fire, New Mexico.

J.J. Cale covered one of Roger's songs, One Step Ahead of the Blues. They toured together in Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee in the early '80s. Roger also wrote songs and played with Tulsa musicians Walt Richmond, Jamie Oldaker and Steve Ripley who eventually formed The Tractors. Roger played on the first CD for the Tractors.

Roger lives in Tulsa where he writes and records with some of the many players he has associated with over the years. His new record entitled Mamble-Jamble was released in Japan last year on Dreamsville records and due to be released in the U.S.A. soon.