Click
on first
letter of artist's first
name – for "Andre Lee",
click "A".
"I have worked with
several blues artists and different musicians,
Bobby Rush, Billy Soul Bonds, the late McKinley
Mitchell - that was in the mid-80s - and nowadays
with Willie Clayton and Tyrone Davis."
Out
of Jackson, Mississippi, comes Andre´,
who was born as Andrew Lee Caples on 21.8.1955
and whose father provided him with some spiritual
legacy, as he was singing gospel around Chicago.
"I started playing guitar at the age
of seven, and by the age of fifteen I was
playing in local groups, and I ended up playing
with a group out of Jackson, Mississippi,
called Freedom." Freedom was an eight-piece
group, who enjoyed some small disco hits on
Malaco in the late 70s. "I have worked
with several blues artists and different musicians,
Bobby Rush, Billy Soul Bonds, the late McKinley
Mitchell - that was in the mid-80s - and nowadays
with Willie Clayton and Tyrone Davis."
Andre‚
hooked up with John Vincent through his manager,
Jerry Meadows, and as a result we have the
first outing on John's new Avanti label and
also Andre's debut (released) recording, So
Good. The set was produced by Andre, Ron Evans
and Harrison Calloway, who now works for the
Avanti organization, and Andre‚ also
does most of the background work. "I
pretty much lay my whole track. I do my drum
programming, the bass lines, guitar and most
of the keyboards."
Andre‚
wrote eight of the ten songs on display. The
overall atmosphere is almost late-night, very
nice and cosy, lacking any edge, which also
can mean uneventfulness. The mid-pacers and
dancers are soft and gentle toddlers, whereas
the ballads - five altogether - tend to be
more on the seducing side. The title slowie
is Andre's own favourite.
The
two outside tunes are a beautiful opening
ballad, Take Hold Of Your Life, known by Dobie
Gray, and L.T.D.'s # 1 hit in '76, Love Ballad,
written by Skip Scarborough but credited to
Mr. Unknown here (but, then, we all know Mr.
Vincent's habits in these matters). There's
also a connection here, because to me at least
Andre‚ sounds a lot like Jeffrey Osborne.
"I've always been fascinated with L.T.D.
and Jeffrey Orborne. A lot of people have
classified me of sounding like Jeffrey, and
also Will Downing, but I think I also got
my own flavour. I took this song and tried
to get a kind of a hip-hop flavour to it and
see what will happen with it."
Andre's
`quiet fire' style seems to be doing ok. "We've
got several orders in from various places
- New Jersey, Detroit, Los Angeles, Georgia
- and we've got an eight thousand order in
from England, so it's beginning to catch on
pretty good."
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Out
of Jackson, Mississippi, comes Andre´,
who was born as Andrew Lee Caples on 21.8.1955
and whose father provided him with some spiritual
legacy, as he was singing gospel around Chicago.
"I started playing guitar at the age
of seven, and by the age of fifteen I was
playing in local groups, and I ended up playing
with a group out of Jackson, Mississippi,
called Freedom." Freedom was an eight-piece
group, who enjoyed some small disco hits on
Malaco in the late 70s. "I have worked
with several blues artists and different musicians,
Bobby Rush, Billy Soul Bonds, the late McKinley
Mitchell - that was in the mid-80s - and nowadays
with Willie Clayton and Tyrone Davis."
