A BORDERS church leader appeared on ITV's The Voice UK last Saturday night.
Bob Strachan, pastor of Jedburgh Baptist Church, took park in the fifth round of blind auditions in front of a live studio audience – performing in front of coaches Will.i.am, Olly Murs, Sir Tom Jones and Anne-Marie.
The 44-year-old has been in the business for more than 20 years and has won several songwriting contests writing for himself and others.
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The show was filmed earlier this year and Bob travelled to Manchester with his wife Naomi, son Joshua and daughter Bobbi, who were backstage when he sang his own version of the famous Johnny Cash hit Folsom Prison Blues.
From the first note, the audience were on their feet imploring the judges to spin their chairs.
And at one stage it looked as though Sir Tom Jones would press his button, but he changed his mind at the last minute.
When the song finished and none of the judges had turned around, the audience made their feelings known.
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Bob said: “It was an amazing experience and an epic atmosphere in the studio. I really felt the pressure to a seat turn and felt gutted afterwards, but it was not down to my performance, I think the show just wasn’t ready for country music.
“The crowd was amazing and even booed the judges afterwards. Everyone was shocked including the host Emma Willis who hadn’t been paying attention and had assumed that they had all turned.
“I sang Folsom Prison Blues but had wanted to sing the Don Williams hit ‘Your My Best Friend’ but the producers wouldn’t let me.
“That song was a favourite of my grandfather Robert Crawford as it reminded him of my grandmother Mary Crawford who passed away in 2009.
"They had been married almost 70 years. He said that he wanted to see me sing that song on TV so I half kept that promise.
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“My main reason for going on the show was to raise awareness of the many thousands of people infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
“That’s what happened to my dad who was my inspiration. He played the piano in the church but could play absolutely anything.
“He used to introduce himself to people as John Buchan Strachan PHD although the PHD stood for Peterhead.
“I spoke about it to the producers but it wasn’t shown which was disappointing.
“But around 15,000 people applied for the show so to have made the top 80 was special.
“Since the show was on TV I’ve noticed a real buzz about the town, so mission accomplished.”
Afterwards, Tom Jones told his fellow coaches: “That’s a Johnny Cash song and once you attempt a song like that, you’ve got to do something with it.”
Olly Murs who had been dancing along to the song pointed out that the audience “absolutely loved it”.
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