Biography

Andy was born in Bristol in 1956, was a chorister at Bristol Cathedral and played the piano. He studied music at Sussex University, where he began to move away from classical music into pop, bluegrass and jazz.

Meeting Robyn Hitchcock and Morris Windsor in the autumn of 1976, Andy joined the band that would soon become The Soft Boys. They gigged and recorded for three years before he left, releasing a number of records (see Discography). Over the next four years he mostly toured with a number of artists, mostly playing keyboards, including his first encounters with Julian Dawson, guesting at gigs and recording in Hamburg, a partnership much revisited in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and toured with Peter Rowan playing accordion.

In 1984 Andy worked in a London studio with Roger Jackson, producing in-house demos for a stable of prospective artists including members of Haysi Fantayzee. The Egyptians were formed in the autumn of that year, recording a cover version of The Bells Of Rhymney to support the UK miner’s strike. They continued to record, and those sessions became their first album, Fegmania! The band released five subsequent studio albums, three live albums and a number of compilations over the next ten years (see discography), touring extensively in the US, the UK and Europe, with a brief trip to Japan.

In the summer of 1985 Andy played keyboards with Squeeze on an 8-week US tour for their reunion album Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, having met Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook the year before. More touring was sandwiched in between Egyptians work throughout the autumn. Squeeze were not working in 1986, but the joint duties resumed again through 1987 and 1988 with the recording and touring for Babylon And On until it became impossible to do both. Andy would briefly rejoin Squeeze in February 1994 for a tour of Japan.

During a hiatus for the Egyptians in 1990, he took the role of musical director for two seasons of the Channel 4 show Vic Reeves Big Night Out plus their New Year’s Special, also producing four songs for the spin-off album I Will Cure You. There was also time for a tour of Japan playing keyboards with Sandie Shaw.

After the breakup of the Egyptians in 1994, Andy’s energies went into studio work and production over the next ten years, including sessions with David Gray (1994), a brief tour with Tasmin Archer (1996), and working in Spain and New York with Deborah Harry. He spent time in LA working with The Autumns and The Sugarplastic, returning to the UK for Under The Sun with Julian Dawson and Tunnel Into Summer with Kimberley Rew in 1999, and with Glenn Tilbrook on the jointly produced The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook in 2000. A tour with Julian Dawson in Germany in 2002 produced the live album Cologne Again Or.

Andy formed the bluegrass band Buffalo Smoke in 2005, performing regularly at gigs and festivals. After the band broke up, he helped form swing band The Swinging Garcons, playing residencies in London. Alongside these guitar gigs, he played bass - and still records - with Anton Barbeau, sometimes in the band Three Minute Tease.

Andy has been teaching guitar and bass since 2008, based for several years in London’s Denmark Street, before moving to Exeter.