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Ruth Chaplin opened the evening with the sad news that Roffey’s former MC Duncan Marshall had passed away earlier that day. He was MC at the club for many years. He also ran the Durrington Rebels CMC on a Monday night. He was also an occasional line dance teacher and was a real gentleman on the country scene and very funny man as well. When he was at Roffey he was always saying “has anybody seen my glasses?”  In response to this members used to buy him funny glasses when they were on holiday. He will be missed by everyone a Roffey, Goffs Park (Crawley), Durrington and other clubs he regularly visited. Rob started with Duncan’s favourite song, Alan Jackson’s Remember When and Ruth asked members to take to the floor in his memory.
Rob Childs is a regular visitor to Roffey and made a welcome return on 16th June, I have known Rob for 35 years, he is very good at interacting with the audience and had little problem creating a great rapport very quickly. He always includes a varied selection of country classics, usually with a suggestion of a dance that will fit. There were plenty of newer songs too including a few IA generated songs – I will pontificate about them later in my report.
After Neon Union’s Made In Mexico and George Strait’s All My Exes Live In Texas, it was then time to go way back in time with Hank Williams’ I Saw The Light, a song Rob used to sing with Nadine Somers when they had a residency at the Sheraton Hotel at Heathrow in 1994.
Rob is a multi-instrumentalist and has a large collection of guitars. He has been “messing about” (his words) with guitars since 1964 when he was 3 and always brings at least three to each gig so, as usual, he was switching between guitars throughout the evening.  Guitar players tend to play many different styles of music and each guitar suits different styles and has a different sound.
A few songs that stood out in the first set included Dan + Shay’s Bigger Houses a heartfelt ode to the American dream, exposing the never-ending pursuit of materialistic bliss, Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) followed by Marty Stuart’s country arrangement of Elvis’ Don’t Be Cruel and BR5-49’s All Week Long (Seven Nights To Rock).
Now it was a time for a duet with Rob being joined on stage by his partner Izzy Archer to sing Ella Langley and Riley Green’s You Look Like You Love Me. Rob told me that Izzy is shy but that certainly didn’t come across. People first got to see Izzy during lockdown when Rob kept busy streaming Country music two days a week when his ‘Cactus Club’ entertained us which was a sort of online Country magazine with plenty of good music, chit chat and lots of wacky antics from Izzy.  I am glad that he has now transferred this to his stage act. A lot of artists sing this song as a duet sometimes calling on someone in the audience to assist or adding Ella Langley to the backing track. Rob and Izzy interacted together very well and it was very entertaining and definitely the way to sing it. I have included it on my phone video.
After George Jones’ Billy B Bad the next song couldn’t have been more different with DJTEXX’s Love Potion 666 the first of three AI generated songs. I am still in two minds about whether this kind of song is a good thing or not.  DJTEXX is a musical project rather than a specific person or group and Love Potion is a viral AI-generated country-dance song created by music producer Andrew Frelon. It’s a high-energy country line dance track that is proving very popular in clubs which in itself must be a good thing. I think AI can be a useful tool if used carefully and wisely (I use it in photography), it brought us Randy Travers Where That Came From (which Rob sung in the second set) with AI generating Randy Travis’ voice after a stroke left him without the ability to sing. That however is a nice melodic country song, Love Potion 666 couldn’t be described as melodic but it did keep the dancers on the floor so I will keep an open mind for now.
Set 2 opened with Blinding Lights from Canadian singer/songwriter The Weeknd after which it was time for a barn dance. Everyone enjoys a barn dance and it even gives me a chance to join in from my seat with some high-fiving. Some artists have been singing classic medleys to prolong the dance and this is what Rob did tonight with a new barn dance medley for him, From A Jack To A King, Take These Chains From My Heart and Singing The Blues.  A couple of old favourites followed with Ty England’s Should’ve Asked Her Faster, a good cowboy charleston and John Prine’s Same Thing Happened to Me.
Next came the first of two Josiah Siska Do Si Dough followed by The Montgomery’s Brotherly Love and one of the lesser known songs by The Mavericks, Live Close By (Visit Often). The song was co-written by The Mavericks’ Raul Malo and K.T. Oslin and is deserves to be heard more often. After Jill King’s Can’t Let Go, it was time for another IA ‘song’, this time 2341studios’ Stomp 2,3,4. 2341studios’ is a musical IA project and production alias primarily associated with Rob Fowler, a well respected line dance choreographer. The music blends traditional country and western elements with modern pop, swing, and energetic club beats. I have included this in my phone video.
Rob opened the third set with Glen Frey’s (Eagles) Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed and another from Josiah Siska with 3 Tequila Floor. Next we heard a nice song from rapper Post Malone with Falling In Love. Rob jokingly wondered if Post Malone was actually his name. Did the Malone family have a son they called Post. I can answer that one Rob, his real name is Austin Post, Post being his surname.
Rob told me many years ago that he doesn’t like singing girls’ songs but he did slip a couple in tonight. Earlier we heard Jill King and then Miranda Lambert’s Ain’t In Kansas Anymore.  Rob told me about his interesting connection with Miranda Lambert. Many years ago, he knew a guitarist from Romford (Essex) called Spencer Cullum. Rob is a prolific pedal steel guitarist and Spencer saw him playing steel one day and took an interest in the instrument and decided to buy one and learn how to play. A few years later Rob was offered a position in a visiting American country band who needed a pedal steel guitarist for their UK tour. Due to other work commitments Rob was unable to do it himself so he recommended Spencer for the job. The band liked Spencer so much that they offered him a permanent position in the band. Spencer went on to become the long-time pedal steel and slide guitar player in Miranda Lambert’s band touring extensively with her (including her Vegas residencies) and contributing to her albums.  If Rob had been available this could have been him but then of course he wouldn’t have met his fiancée Izzy Archer!
My favourite Bobby Vee song, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes was followed by a classic from Merle Haggard, Today I Started Loving You Again. DJTEXX Wild West And Wicked is the last of the IA generated hands tonight. It has rather strange lyrics!
Next came a really old song, Dean Martin’s Memories Are Made Of This which was brought up to date by The Dean Brothers. Rob remembers playing with The Deans well over 20 years ago and singing this song which was later choreographed by Maggie Gallagher and John Dean (The Dean Brothers) as Just A Memory and remains popular with dancers today.
There were plenty of requests throughout the evening and I think Rob got most if not all of them in; last request of the evening was from Ruth for Brad Paisley’s Wrapped around which almost wrapped up the evening. Rob took us out in fine style with Tim McGraw’s I Like It, I Love It and Brooks & Dunn’s Whiskey Under The Bridge. There was of course an encore Keith Urban’s Somebody Like You. Rob did us proud this evening as he always does, he will be back at Roffey next year.
Having worked with other people all his life either in bands, trios or duos, Rob went solo in 2014 but still occasionally works with Bob Keeley and Nadine Somers in the Nadine Somers Band and he has also been US country comedian Rich Hall’s right hand man since 2001 providing the musical accompaniment with his Black Liars Band in which he performs as Myron T. Buttram. Rob remains very busy with solo gigs when he’s not touring with Rich Hall.
Click below to see my phone video.