Rogers, along with his elder brother Stan, was raised in Binbrook, Ontario,[3] and spent summers in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.

[7] At first, Rogers had difficulty getting a permit from the U.S. Immigration Service, which only granted one after a campaign on his behalf was launched by Odetta, The Boston Globe, and a PBS TV station in New York.

His humour is also seen in his on-stage banter between songs,[6] mostly unrecorded, except for a couple of interludes on his brother's posthumous album, "Home in Halifax".

In addition, Garnet has covered other folk artists' work, including Roy Forbes' (Bim's) Woh Me, and Archie Fisher's The Final Trawl.

[11] Rogers has also written "Night Drive," a memoir of his travels with his brother Stan, who died in a fire aboard an Air Canada flight in 1983.