HORACE ANDY
Horace Andy in Lisbon, Portugal in 2005.This text is a short survey of Horace Andy's musical career until today. It is compiled from various sources, such as record sleeves(notably the Blood & Fire releases), The Rough Guide to Reggae and Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music. The picture is taken from the cover of the Blood & Fire DoLP "Good Vibes".Horace Andy Horace Andy(born Horace Hinds, Kingston, 1951) started with his first recordings, "Blackman's Country" and "I May Never See My Baby" in 1967 for producer Phil Pratt, but he didn't gain instant success, to some extent maybe because he tried in vain to sound like his then idol, rocksteady singer Delroy Wilson(Later, on the other hand, after Horace had used his unique voice to successful develop his own style a bunch of singers appeared to imitate him, e.g. Wayne Jarret and Patrick Andy). Horace comments his first recording attempts with
"Crap! I had a voice, but I did not know how to use it."As with so many reggae artists, Studio One helped Horace Andy to make himself a name as a singer with several singles and records he cut for Studio One producer Clement Dodd(who also gave him his stage name), notably such songs as "Skylarking"(which is listed on position 15 in a chart compiled from the weekly JBC charts of 1972), "See A Man's Face" and "Every Tongue Shall Tell". Another Studio One classic is "Mr.Bassie", his respect to bassist and member of The Heptones, Leroy Sibbles. This is what Horace Andy says about "Mr.Bassie":
"An' Leroy Heptones, me a fi give thanks for Leroy Sibbles all the time. That's why I mek 'Mr.Bassie', off a Leroy Heptones, fi real."Very soon many of the leading producers wanted to make records with Sleepy, as Horace Andy is also known. He then recorded - among others - for Phil Pratt again("Money is the Root of all Evil", "Tag Along" and "Let The Teardrops Fall", of which the last two can be found on the compilation of Phil Pratt productions, "The Best Of Sunshot"(Jet Set)), for Derrick Harriot("Lonely Woman") and extensively for Bunny Lee("You are my Angel"). Many tunes for those and other producers were available only as Jamaican 45s and have disappeared long ago, after the first pressing was sold out.In 1977 Horace Andy teamed up with New York based producer Everton DaSilva and from this collaboration comes the outstanding set "In the Light", which was produced together by Andy and DaSilva. Tragically this partnership, which also gave birth to a bunch of singles and 12", came to a sudden end when Everton DaSilva was murdered in 1979.During the Eighties Horace Andy continued releasing music on a regular basis both in Jamaica(among others for Jammy, Sly & Robbie and Bobby Digital) and in the USA on his own Rhythm imprint and for 'indie'-label Rough Trade. A highlight of this period is the album "Dance Hall Style", one of two records Horace did with producer Lloyd 'Bullwackie' Barnes.In 1990 he was approached by Bristol-based hitmakers Massive Attack to join them for recordings, saying:
"I always wanted to try music like this, but there was no-one in Jamaica to do it."
Since then he contributed vocals to all of Massive Attack's records and they even reworked some of his earlier tunes. Other work of the 90s are two sets produced by Mad Professor and various singles with drum & bass partnership Mafia & Fluxy in Kingston, JAM.October this year saw the release of Horace Andy's latest album "Living In The Flood", with the title track co-written by Joe Strummer.
Releases untill 1987...
1969
1973
1974
1977
1978
1979
1980
1982
1983
1985
1987