♪♪ ♪♪ My name is Randy Roberts and I am the organist at the Iowa State Fair Horse Show.

♪♪ My first Iowa State Fair was in 1971.

And I remember that because I had just graduated from college.

I was going to teach school up in Ballard.

And so I think I've been there every year since.

And it's just a fun time.

I enjoy getting my contract in the mail and knowing that I'm going to be back there again.

♪♪ The thing I enjoy about the Iowa State Fair is that you see a lot of the same people year after year.

When I started playing I was over in the Pavillion and I would see people, they would always tend to sit in the same sections every year.

And I almost got to know them beacuse a lot of these people will attend all 12 days of the Fair Horse Shows and they always stop by and say hi.

♪♪ I only play for horse shows.

I travel all over the country.

I've done shows on the West Coast, I do them in Arizona, I've been in Texas this year.

I just came back from New Hampshire last week.

So I kind of get all over the place.

♪♪ Years ago my brother used to show horses in Iowa.

I grew up in Northwest Iowa.

And I was taking organ lessons and some friends of my parents were putting on a little one day, fun day type horse show and wanted to know if I would bring the organ out and play for it.

And I agreed to do it and it just kind of went from there.

♪♪ I think they want to have some kind of background music of some kind just so it's not dead all the time.

I really don't know if I play for the horses or if I play for the spectators or who I play for, but when I am playing I like to try to have songs that are keeping the same gait, the same tempo as what the horses are performing at.

So if they're trotting, I play a little faster than when they walk, and then I slow down and then I play the canter music.

And to be real honest, I had three hernia surgeries while I was hauling the organ because I had a pickup that I would load the thing into.

And so I'd get in the back of the pickup and lift it up, which is probably not the best for me, but that's what I did.

And it got to the point where I needed a new truck to drive.

And I thought, oh gosh, do I want to buy a new truck to keep doing this?

And I had this idea, maybe I should try a keyboard.

And I knew I would give up a lot of sound quality.

I had a Hammond B3, which is the top of the line organ as far as I was concerned.

But the convenience was so much better.

And when I go to the West Coast, East Coast or wherever, I fly the keyboard out there ahead of time.

Hopefully it meets me at the hotel.

And I just plug into their sound system and away we go.

So I've been able to do more shows because I've gone to the keyboard.

♪♪ Probably the people that either I work with or some of the exhibitors.

We get to know each other because a lot of us go to the same shows.

And we just have a fun time.

It's just fun.

So I think the people is why I do it.

I do enjoy the horses, but the people is really what keeps me going I guess.

♪♪