Easy to love

Roy Chaffin is no stranger to the Boggy Bayou Festival. He has been performing off and on at the festival for the last 36 years, since the very beginning. A Pine Prairie native, Roy said he was “born with music in him.” He grew up listening to classic country music and Swamp Pop, especially Johnnie Allan and Clint West. “That’s what my mom and them listened to,” said Roy.
In high school, Roy and his friends had house parties where they played music and sang. Roy started with guitar, and by 1977, he started playing and singing in night clubs. In 1980, Roy joined a band with Elwood Charles and they even recorded a 45 single called “Gimme Gimme a Little Lovin’.” The B side was titled “A Thousand Goodbyes.”
Roy and Elwood played together for about three years. When Elwood left, Roy called the band the Bayou Boogie Band, and they played quite a bit around the Alexandria area. Over the years, he played with several bands, including the Knight Train Band, The Cartoons, and the Paul & Pete Band. He also recorded other 45 singles, but in 1998, he recorded a solo album with some notable studio musicians, such as drummers Clint West and Warren Storm. That album contained his biggest hit, “You’re So Easy to Love.”
From growing up idolizing the big Swamp Pop stars, Roy has become friends with them throughout the years and plays regularly at the annual Swamp Pop Reunion in Ville Platte. Johnnie Allan has actually become a good friend of Roy’s. Last weekend Johnnie cooked for Roy and his wife, Sue, at his camp. “He cooked us a marinated pork gravy, corn, and all kind of stuff,” Roy laughed.
While Roy doesn’t play night clubs anymore, there was a time he played often, even traveling to festivals in Texas and Wisconsin. He always returned to his beloved Evangeline Parish, though, where he enjoyed and played for the Boggy Bayou Festival in his home town. “Father Prescott was such a good man,” Roy said of the festival founder. “He and all the others organizing the event are such good people. I wanted to help as much as I could.”
In the beginning, Roy even brought his own P.A. and set it up for the whole weekend before the festival could afford a sound company. “I love the local people and everybody who comes. I just felt like it as a good thing to do. I just wanted to help the community if I could,” he said.
Roy is working on a new album with the Paul & Pete Band backing him up. The album will be all new original material spanning Swamp Pop and country genres. They started on the album last summer, but the pandemic put everything on hold. Now he hopes to have it finished by the end of the year, which he thinks is a good time because there are a couple of Christmas songs on the list.
When he’s not playing music, Roy is retired from a carpentry career, but he still does small jobs here and there. He lives in Turkey Creek now. He has four children and has been married to his wife, Sue, for 27 years. He will be playing at the Boggy Bayou Festival on Friday night.