Roy started his musical career at age fourteen with his first band, playing drums and guitar. He started performing folk music as a solo act in the late '60's around Fort Worth,Texas. He performed in many bands in Austin,Texas and San Francisco,California from the late '60's to the '70's, performing original music. By then he had taught himself to play bass, dobro and steel guitar.

While performing in Austin, the band was the opening act at Armadillo World Headquarters, Soap Creek Saloon and "a folk place, the old Checkered Flag. That group got pretty solid. We took off for San Francisco playing clubs like The Family Dog,The Lions Share,Fillmore West. We did a west coast tour with Santana, and acoustic group-The Kinks. While playing in an electric band opening for Boz Scaggs, Roy Robinson acquired his musical alter-ego, Amos Staggs. "Our drummer was from Chicago,he was saying, 'You're much too funky for the Roy deal', he started calling me Amos, and it stuck."