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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZBEY, Andy(b 28 Oct. '39, Newark NJ) Singer. Self-taught on piano, playing by ear at age three, later had formal piano and singing lessons. First break early '50s as a regular on TV show Startime with Connie Francis, continuing for five years until his voice started changing; also sang with Louis Jordan at New York's Apollo Theatre '53. He then worked ten years internationally with his older sisters, Geraldine and Salome, as Andy and the Bey Sisters, particularly successful in Paris: eponymous albums on Fontana '59 and RCA '60 are probably the same one; they also made Now, Hear! and Round About Midnight '64--5 on Prestige (Salome made an album for Pickwick c'70). Andy toured nearly a year with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band early '70s; as a sideman he sang on Gary Bartz's anti-war Harlem Bush Music '70--71 on Milestone, on Horace Silver's That Healin' Feelin' , Total Response and All '70--72 on Blue Note, and on Stanley Clarke's Children Of Forever '72 on Polydor; his own album Experience And Judgement on Atlantic '74 with a quintet and strings showed an East Indian influence. He toured '87 with Silver, sang on a few of Horace's self-prod. records on his Emerald label; after a long silence recording-wise came As Time Goes By '91 on Jazzette, recorded solo live at the B. P. Club in Zagreb: he accompanies his smooth soulful voice with sparse piano playing, nearly all the tunes at ballad tempo: 'Lush Life', 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime', 'As Time Goes By', etc. In '95 he did one track ('Something To Live For') on pianist Fred Hersch's Passion Flower '96, a Billy Strayhorn tribute on Nonesuch, and recorded his own solo Ballads Blues And Bey '96 on Evidence, his first own American recording in over 20 years. But his influence has been far greater than the number of recordings, as the beautiful Evidence versions of Strayhorn, Ellington, Gershwin and Porter will attest. |