Peter Roller

Peter Roller grew up in suburban Summit, NJ and started playing guitar in teen garage bands there during the mid 1960s. Years later, after going deep down the rabbit hole of American roots music styles, Roller was guitar accompanist for first generation bluesman Yank Rachell during the 1980s--producing and playing guitar on Rachell's Grammy-nominated album Blues Mandolin Man (Blind Pig Records). Roller received a Masters degree in Folklore and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University, writing a thesis about Rachell's blues performance style. While working as associate professor of music at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI, Roller collected extensive oral history about amateur garage bands representing a time span from the beginnings of R&R during the mid-50s through the 1990s. This research culminated in a PhD dissertation in Ethnomusicology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, which provided the basis for the book Milwaukee Garage Bands: Generations of Grassroots Rock.

Roller has continued his guitar activities while working as a college teacher and writer: his slide guitar piece "Rancho Mirage" is included on the compilation Masters of Acoustic Guitar (Narada) and a full-length CD of his original guitar music, Blue Fog, was released in 2010.