Career
From 1964, Andrews supported his nascent career as a singer/songwriter by working as a schoolteacher, before becoming a full-time professional musician in 1966.
Harvey Andrews has produced 17 successful albums singing his own songs, many of which have also been recorded by other artists.
His emotive Soldier (mp3 clip) transmits the same quiet desperation of a soldier about to die "in conflict" as Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est, though in a very different setting. In fact, the contrast of a battlefield to a commonplace urban setting and the proximity of children makes the situation even more poignant and the loss of a young life even more tragic.
Hey Sandy (mp3 clip) on the album Writer of Songs is another description of the senseless loss of a young life in conflict. It is based on the death of a female student, Sandra Scheuer, who was shot by the Ohio National Guard at the Kent State University in the U.S. anti Vietnam War demonstration of 1970, although, unlike the Sandy of Andrews' song, the real student was not directly involved in the demonstration. The album version of the song is an unusual, but powerful, arrangement, in which the first verse is sung to the accompaniment of a solo double bass, played by Danny Thompson. The recording was never issued in the USA until Kent State University's commemorative CD was released in 2005. It reached number 2 in the New Zealand chart in November 1972. In stark contrast, his Boothferry Bridge (mp3 clip) and Gift of a Brand New day (mp3 clip) reflect the contentment of the simple pleasures of everyday life.
He collaborated on a successful musical depicting life growing up in Birmingham in the forties and fifties. "Go Play Up Your Own End" has been well received across the Midlands, especially in its production in 2006 featuring Jasper Carrot in a major role, but has yet to make the transfer to London. The musical has played at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Birmingham Hippodrome and the Alexandra Theatre, thus setting a record of having been staged at every one of the second city’s major theatres.
In 2007 he published a musical memoir "Gold star to the Ozarks". Harvey retired from full-time concert performances in October 2012 with a series of concerts at The Guild Hall, Lichfield.
He is father of the author Scott Andrews.
Read more about this topic: Harvey Andrews
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
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“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)