Tony Rouse has American roots; his father was a Cajun resident of Golden Meadows, Louisiana. He has spent much of his life in the UK although he often returned to the States and still does. He formed his first country band in the mid-1980s getting a recording contract in 1987. At that time, he wrote much of his own material reaching the final of a national US song writing competition in Baton Rouge in 1989/90; he lost out to the Little River Band. In 1990 his five piece Circle-T Band was proving very popular on the British festival circuit playing the prestigious International Festival of Country Music at Wembley Arena as The Tony Rouse Band on 31 March 1991. This was the last Wembley Festival after 23 years.
He was spotted by a talent scout and, after an audition in 1993, and was offered a part on the West End stage in Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre, where he played Jean Prouvaire and later Marius. In 1994 he joined the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express at the Apollo Victoria playing Greasball until 1996. I first saw Tony Rouse in 1994 when he was in Starlight. He left the company in 1996 to return to his roots teaming up with popular country band Plain Loco. Sadly, the collaboration didn’t last long and he went back to Greaseball and Starlight in 1998. By the early years of the 20th century he had left the West End for good and was back on the country circuit as a soloist where he is still very popular today.
Research by Nick Catford.