Remembering Paisley Peacock’s Bob Andrews

By Lucy Jones 

We contain multitudes” is a favorite refrain of one of my wise and lovely friends. This is the phrase that cycles through my head as I think about Bob Andrews. It applies equally to him and to me as I reflect on the decades that we shared on this planet.

As a weirdo youth, Bob represented everything that I both loved and feared in the world. A trip to Paisley Peacock made me feel like I found my people, but also like I would never actually be cool enough to stand alongside them. Bob didn’t suffer privileged but disenfranchised kids like me gladly. Who could blame him?

As I grew and found myself, I slowly discovered an ally in Bob. The first time I ever booked a show it was at his club. It was a disaster. Everything fell apart. The headliner bailed on the road. Something about chicken pox…or was it mono? Who knows. But it was a mess. I wanted to cancel but their touring partner insisted on playing. It would have been fine had the local supporting band not (for the umpteenth time) quasi broken up that morning. So there’s one expensive act who nobody knows showing up to play and only a handful of die-hards showing up to see them. But Bob was so kind and so generous. He took pity on me. He came down on the price of the venue and accepted the door. He was gracious and sweet and, in my most vulnerable moments, showed me a gentle side of himself I had never seen.

Many years later, when I returned to Kentucky as an adult, I volunteered at the non-profit where he worked. That’s when we became legitimate and lasting friends. That’s when I learned about his sweet, hilarious, patient, kind self. There was none of the moodiness that I had witnessed in previous decades. The generosity that I witnessed on one formative night in the 1990s was fully realized in this ultimate Bob. I immediately fell in love with him and have held those feelings until this day and beyond. I’m so sad to learn of his passing and I’m so grateful for the incredible impact he had on so many of us.

‘Not Enough Makeup’

By Matt Dacey 

I still vividly remember the first time I met Robert F Andrews. It was the fall semester of 1987, and I was taking a Theater Arts class (TA 101) at UK. One day in class, our instructor had arranged for a demonstration of stage makeup, and I volunteered to sit onstage and have makeup applied. The artist was Bob. His task was to make me look like an old man. I was a very young-looking 20 at the time. While he was working, I asked him if he thought I might be able to go to the liquor store with the makeup on and not get carded. He paused for a minute, looked at me, and said, totally deadpan, “I don’t have enough makeup for that.”

Bob added a lot of color to a lot of people’s lives, and was truly one of the cornerstones of the character of this town for a long time. I’m grateful to have known him.

This memorial also appears on page 18 of the March 2023 print edition of Ace. To subscribe to digital delivery, click here.