In October 2022, I wrote an article for the Bowhunting World website called “Whitetail Video: The Unapologetic Joy of Roger Raglin.”
I’m a longtime fan of Raglin’s simple, old-school approach of communicating his love of hunting, yet somehow I missed the fact he’s an accomplished pianist. When I saw a tease on my Facebook feed promoting his piano skills, I assumed it was clickbait. To be honest, if you’d asked me to name someone well known in the hunting industry with zero skills as a musician, Raglin’s name would have been near the top of my list.
![Believe it or not, Raglin took piano lessons as a young child, continued with lessons and practiced a tremendous amount in high school, and even received college scholarships for music.](https://cole-grandviewoutdoors.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grandviewoutdoors.com%2Fuploads%2Fimages%2FRaglin-music-history-collage.jpg?fit=clip&ixlib=php-1.1.0&mode=&position=&q=80&ratio=&w=500&s=d2a0412fc570bd2f34a6294062da599e)
Click here to watch an interesting 3-minute video that reveals Raglin’s interest and history in music; in the video, he plays a piano while staying at a bed and breakfast during a Texas deer hunt. Good stuff.
In the 6-minute YouTube video below, Raglin plays a tribute to the Beatles. Notice that he doesn’t rely on any sheet music. You can fast-forward to the 1:16 mark to get right to the tribute music; one of my favorite songs starts at the 3:30 mark. In total, he plays 4.5 minutes of classics from the Beatles.
I’ve been in several hunting camps where fellow outdoor writers and editors brought a guitar to play around the fire. But in my opinion, none of them had anything close to the musical ability shown here by Raglin.