Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and began playing guitar at the age of 8. By the time he was 15 he was playing professionally locally. In 1950, he moved to Los Angeles, California. With the assistance of Jack Marshall, he began working with musicians, arrangers and songwriters including Neal Hefti, Henry Mancini, Bobby Troup, Chico Hamilton, George Van Eps, and Barney Kessel. Around 1956, Bobby Troup signed him to Verve Records as a solo artist. At that time he decided to concentrate on recording, both as a solo artist and a Wrecking Crew session musician, a direction he would continue until the early 1970s. Roberts played rhythm and lead guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin. He was known for his heavy use of the Gibson L-5 guitar in the studio and for television and movie projects, including lead guitar on the theme from The Twilight Zone as well as acoustic and electric guitar on I Love Lucy, The Munsters, Bonanza, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, Green Acres, Get Smart, Batman, Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, Peter Gunn, Lost in Space, Dragnet, Wild Wild West, , The Odd Couple, Dick Van Dyke, I Dream of Jeannie, and the theme for the film Bullitt. Roberts recorded with Georgie Auld, Peggy Lee, Eddie CochranJody Reynolds, Shelley Fabares, Dean Martin, the Monkees, Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, and the Electric Prunes. In 1961, Roberts designed a signature guitar which was produced by Epiphone. The guitar was a modified Gibson ES-175, with a round sound hole and a single pickup. A redesigned version was later produced by Gibson. In 1963, Roberts recorded Color Him Funky and H.R. Is a Dirty Guitar Player, his first two albums after signing with Capitol. Produced by Jack Marshall, they both feature the same quartet with Roberts, Chuck Berghofer, Earl Palmer and Paul Bryant alternating with Burkley Kendrix on organ. He recorded ten albums with Capitol before signing with ABC Records/Impulse! Records. As a member of the Wrecking Crew, Roberts was a part of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, playing guitar on some of the most famous songs in pop music history. From the late 1960s, Roberts began to focus on teaching rather than recording. He traveled around the country giving guitar seminars, and wrote several instructional books. For some years he also wrote an acclaimed column called "Jazz Improvisation" for Guitar Player magazine. Roberts developed accelerated learning concepts and techniques, which led to the founding of Playback Music Publishing and the Guitar Institute of Technology. In 1977, he co-founded the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Roberts died of prostate cancer in Seattle, Washington, on June 28, 1992. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Howard Roberts among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Howard Roberts' main instrument was a Gibson ES-150. Howard Roberts worked with Epiphone and Gibson to create several signature guitars. In 1962, Howard Roberts endorsed Epiphone and later the Epiphone Howard Roberts model was introduced. It was a 16" wide hollow body guitar with a Gibson humbucker bridge pickup and an oval sound hole in the center of body. In 1969 the model was rebranded as a Gibson. In 1970, Gibson introduced the Howard Roberts Fusion model, an electric semi-hollow guitar. The model evolved into Howard Roberts Fusion II in 1988 and Howard Roberts Fusion III in 1991. Both models are now discontinued.
