Travis started to sing in the local night clubs. He'd dabbled in poetry growing up and had played drums for the local bar bands. He taught himself the harmonica and had recently picked up the guitar. 'For me,' Travis recalls, 'playing music and writing songs were the only times that I felt like I had a soul. It was the only therapy that ever really worked.' He'd close every set with 'Amazing Grace,' this really cool, albeit meaningless, song with some great hooks. Travis began to play with some great blues legends: Sam Myers of Anson Funderburg and the Rockets, Fingers Taylor who played with Jimmy Buffett, and many others. His writing developed and he started making a meager living with his art.

Eventually, Travis began to write songs about his relationship with God and a couple of key meetings began to set up the next 10 years of his life: he met David Huff of David and the Giants and Keith Thibodeaux (Little Ricky on 'I Love Lucy'). Travis and Keith began touring regionally in the Southeast, and David cut one of Travis' songs on the new David & the Giants record. 'The first time I heard that song on the radio, I pulled the car over and wept,' Travis remembers. It became a top-twenty AC hit. Travis eventually had nearly ten more songs cut by well-known contemporary Christian artists, with more than half becoming top-twenty AC hits. Most notably, one of Travis' tunes, 'Should've Been Lovin' You,' was cut by Jonathon Pierce,and it became a number one single, winning Travis a 2001 ASCAP Award.