W – is for Andy White

Sunday 17th September

Continuing in the series of artists no-one has ever heard of, step forward Mr. Andy White.  This was another great find from my days of scouring the CD single racks in second-hand record stores in Soho during lunch-breaks in the late Eighties and Nineties.  Andy hailed from Northern Ireland, Belfast in fact – and when he hailed I heard him loud and clear.  He was on the famous Stiff label, which seemed to take rather outlandish punts on all sorts of artists back in the day.  He was what I would call a troubadour, an artist, a poet and a singer-songwriter.  Idiosyncratic and totally self-taught and original – no wonder all the major labels ignored him and no-one has ever heard of him.

He has a distinctive almost talking voice and his Belfast accent rings clear.  I have always liked British singers who eschew singing in American for regional accents – so much better. Andy has a naivety and charm all his own.  He makes no compromises to please the record company.

I bought a handful of CD singles and four full albums in the early Nineties (and he made a record with Tim Finn too which immediately bombed as well), and then I sort of lost touch with him.  He was never reviewed in the music mags and looking for him in record shops would be pointless.  But I have just looked him up on Wikipedia and he has continued releasing albums, so I have some catching up to do.  I can hardly recommend him, as he certainly won’t be most people’s tas du the, but look him up on you-tube.  He is quite harmless really and you might even like him too..

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