Kelly and Michael married in 2000 and any further thoughts of singing were put on the back burner as they settled down to bring up a family. During her early life she didn’t have much of a relationship with her father but they reconnected after bringing up her family and it was the love of music that brought them together. Her dad David formed a duo with a friend in the early 2000s. His friend was also David and being bald he took the name Curly and they became Curly & Dave. They played a mix of 50s and 60s country and rock ‘n’ roll working in pubs and clubs in Surrey until 2015. Dave and Curly were both singers in the duo and Curly played keyboards.
On one occasion, Kelly went to one of his gigs at a pub in Chertsey where an Elvis tribute act, Paul Trowbridge, was also performing.  Kelly’s dad persuaded her, very reluctantly, to sing for the first time in public. She really didn’t want to do it as she didn’t think she was good enough but as he had asked her so publicly she couldn’t really say “no” and she sung Connie Francis’ Stupid Cupid. To her surprise, her performance was very well received and Paul Trowbridge approached her and told her about a big show that he was planning and he added that he would like her to sing during the break. She was initially reluctant telling Paul “one song doesn’t make me a professional singer” but he insisted and she agreed to do it. She knew this could be her opportunity to fulfil a dream so she booked some lessons with a vocal coach as she wanted to learn how to sing properly. She knew how to sing but a vocal coach would teach her techniques like breathing, pitch, tone and range, alongside performance skills like diction and interpretation. She did the show in late 2010, it went very well and she now had the ‘bug’ and knew that this was what she wanted to do. She was used to dancing on stage but when she came off stage to teach she still needed that stage buzz.
Kelly advertised “Female lead singer looking for a band” and within a short time she had a full complement of top class musicians and Boxcar Kelly & The Railroaders started rehearsing in late 2010 and did the first gig in Summer 2011. There were a few initial lineup changes but Kelly soon had a settled lineup comprising: Kelly Cobbett (lead vocals), David Chappel (lead guitar) – David had played in bands both professionally and semi professionally for many years. He had experience in rock, blues, soul, pop and country music and had played some prestigious venues including The Café de Paris, The Limelight Club and at the F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone. Dave’s musical journey had taken him to all the national holiday camps, top London hotels, and cruise ships as well as providing him with extensive recording experience.
Tony Spence (drums) – His drumming career started at the age of 15 when he joined the army. He formed his own band for a number of years then, after a break, his love of country music inspired by George Jones, Merle Haggard and George Strait drew him to the country circuit. Before joining Kelly he played with some of the best know bands for 30 years touring with Nashville Nights and Dixie days as well as a Patsy Cline tribute show.  Dave Gallagher (pedal steel guitar) – Dave had been listening to the music of the Louvin Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Loretta Lynn and George Jones for 30 years. He played guitar and keyboards in soul, blues and rock bands but his pleas to play a proper country song fell on deaf ears until he met Kelly. “Playing a Hammond B3” said Dave “is not that different to playing pedal steel. It’s all about creating a mood and blending in with the singer. Same disciplines but lighter instrument to carry around!”
Chris Robbins (bass) – Chris had been playing bass and guitar all his life. He had worked in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Canary Islands and the U.K. working with numerous and diverse range of bands over the years including reggae, soul, blues and jazz.  The final member of the band was Kelly’s husband Michael (rhythm guitar). He worked as a mechanic during the week and gigging with the band at weekends. Michael didn’t start playing until Kelly started the band. When their first gig had been booked Kelly said to him “you need to learn to play guitar.” He could always sing harmonies and had always wanted to play but had never been encouraged to learn. So he persevered until he was sufficiently proficient to play with the band.  Kelly does play a little guitar but only plays to write as it helps her with the melodies and chords and it helps her find the right notes. She has always felt that her instrument is her voice so she really doesn’t need to play although, like all singers who don’t play an instrument, she does get occasional comments “you’re just a karaoke singer”. As a singer, she doesn’t like to be constrained by having a guitar or mic stand. She likes to be free to move around the stage which makes her performance a lot more visual and entertaining.
When Kelly formed The Railroaders, bands had been in decline in clubs for some years and none of the agents would give them any bookings. Also, some people were reluctant to book a band with a female lead so Kelly resorted to advertising. Their first gig was a local Woking social club where Cliff from the Chertsey Rednecks CMC was in the audience.  He and another couple of country clubbers spread the word and the new band slowly began picking up a few bookings. They did a few free gigs just to get known and once people realised that it was a real country band with top rate musicians more bookings started coming in.  Aware that not all clubs couldn’t afford a 6-piece band Kelly launched Tennessee Country Duo with Michael in 2012. The duo got really busy very quickly and Michael soon realised that he couldn’t be a member of the band and duo and hold down a day job so he decided to leave work and concentrate on country music so he and Kelly went fully pro and still are to this day.  Over the next two years, people told them the name Tennessee Country made them sound “Too country” and that might detrimentally affect bookings. They initially changed the name to Boxcar Kelly Duo but that caused confusion as people didn’t always know if it was the band or the duo. In 2015 they had a change of image and a change of name to Roots & Wings.
As with many bands, the lineup of musicians was quite fluid. By 2014 there were a couple of changes to the line up with Andy Green coming in on lead guitar and Adam Glear on pedal steel. While Roots and Wings were doing very well, band bookings continued to trickle in. They got quite a lot of bookings in the West Midlands and Manchester. As most of their bookings came from the this area this inevitable led to further changes in lineup. By 2016 they were joined by Birmingham based Stuart Dempsey-Robbins on lead guitar and Pat McGarth on drums. This wasn’t so convenient for Kelly and Michael who still lived in Surrey. They did a 2 week tour of Scotland in mid-2018 and they were very well received. Boxcar Kelly & The Railroaders and Roots & Wings were forced to take a break from performing in 2019 when Michael broke his back in a serious road accident but returned to the circuit in August that year. The Railroaders continued to play until covid but often with dep musicians, when I saw them in 2018 Clive Grant was on lead guitar and vocals and in 2019 Ray Philips was on lead and pedal steel guitar and vocals.
Kelly has released three CD albums; the first in 2013 was called The Way I Am. The album were all covers and although credited to Kelly as a solo album a number of tracks on it were by the band or featured band members. Kelly is a prolific songwriter and the other two albums were all original songs, From Me To You in 2016 and Dream Chaser (credited to Lee Ann Kelly – Leanne is her middle name) in 2025.  This album is dedicated to her late mum Heather who she describes as “My biggest inspiration and my constant encourager”.
These days singing is now the biggest part of Kelly’s career, she is still teaching Irish step dancing and opened a new class in Norwich in 2025 but dancing has very much now taken a back seat. She considers songwriting to be a very important part of her future hence her first album of original songs in 2016. In 2017 she started writing a song for her mum but it didn’t work so she put it away and forgot about it. Having reconnected with her dad in the early 2000s which led to her becoming a singer she had a lot she needed to say to him but was worried that if she said it he might not take it the right way and it could damage their relationship. She wanted to write a song to express her feelings and the words came to her in a dream one night  and she had to get up at 3am and write down what she had in her head and she literally wrote the whole song in one go and recorded it as she had written it from her bed. She put the song, Where Did You Go, on her The Way I Am album which she gave it to him before anyone else got a copy telling him “there’s a very personal song on there which you need to listen to before anyone else gets to hear it” They got very emotional.  She then started writing a song for her mum but that didn’t work so she put it away in 2017. When her mum was unwell in 2024, on her way to visit her in hospital she had words and a melody in her head. She wrote it down on her phone on her way to a gig but didn’t know what to do with it until she realised it went with the song she had started in 2017. She went back to this and added the chorus she had written down and this was Willow Tree. Her mum passed away in late July but the songs just kept on coming. She was going to stop the album at eight tracks but then it went on to ten and then twelve. She knew she needed to stop or the album would never be released. She has written a further six songs since which will go on the next album. She would really love to release a vinyl album.
Not everything works but she writes down everything.  Like many British country songwriters it’s a massive problem for Kelly that she has no outlet for her music in the kind of venues where Roots & Wings play as they are predominantly dance venues. She has worked with a choreographer with a couple of songs.
Kelly sees herself continuing to work as a singer/songwriter, that’s what she wants to do. There are no plans to take any solo gigs because she doesn’t play a guitar which would make it harder to get bookings but she told me “I am working on that. I would like to play and I feel as a songwriter I need to be able to play.”
Roots & Wings remain very busy. They did a Scottish tour in 2024 but have decided to take a break from these long tours as they aren’t economical.
Kelly has now teamed up with Martin Jaye and they do a live show together called Hayride Jamboree. They haven’t done many shows yet as they are both busy and they are trying to fit it round other bookings. It’s a show about some of the artists who helped develop Country music in the southern United States from the 1920s onwards. Martin opens the show as Hank Williams and Kelly opens as Patsy Cline. They then sing a duet together before there’s a change of outfit and a change of artist. Through the show Martin performs as Jim Reeves, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Don Williams while Kelly performs as Tammy Wynette, Billie Jo Spears, Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. It’s a great show for partner dancers, a great show for listeners and lovers of Country music. They are happy to take the show to clubs if clubs want to book them. With several changes of outfits and use of a projection screen this really is a show for lovers of Country music.  Michael Cobbett does the sound for the show. There’s already a CD and they would like to release it on vinyl.