How many people can lay claim to a career so varied that it includes appearances on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, Montreaux Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, the London Palladium, the Grand Ole Opry and the Kremlin? From Punk to Funk, the simplicity of Country and Blues to the complexity of HyperJazz and World Beat? Not many. Yet premier bassist and educator Roy Vogt has done all that and more.
The first person to receive a Masters degree in Electric Bass Performance – from the University of Miami’s prestigious music school – Roy has been pursuing the art of bass for more than forty years. In addition, he is recognized as one of the finest educators in the world, mentoring dozens of successful professionals, including the legendary Willie Weeks. Electric, fretless, upright, you name it. If it plays low notes and has strings, Roy is a master at playing it, and in teaching others to do the same.
Over his four-decade career, Roy has recorded or performed with an amazing list of top stars, including Larry Coryell, Victor Wooten, Dave Weckl, Tom Scott and the LA Express, Chester Thompson, Miroslav Vitous, Glenn Campbell, BJ Thomas, Chet Atkins, Englebert Humperdink, Dickey Betts, Tony Joe White, Charlie Daniels, Jerry Reed, and dozens more.
Roy has been teaching at the university level for thirty years. Since 1983, he has held the Bass Professor chair at prestigious Belmont University (Nashville, TN), one of the very few schools to offer a commercial music degree program designed to turn students into professional musicians working at the top of the industry. Roy’s students have toured and recorded with such notable stars as Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill, Little Texas, Michael W. Smith, Lady Antebellum, Chick Corea, Sir Tom Jones, Blood Sweat and Tears, Yanni, and countless other music icons.