Considered among Jamaica’s most remarkable singer-songwriters, Keith ‘Bob Andy’ Anderson was born on October 28, 1944, in Kingston. During Heritage Week, Bob scored his eightieth birthday from the ancestral realm on Monday. This is consequential because Bob Andy exemplified an independent worldview, a perspective devoid of the cliché shenanigans on which average journeymen, hoping to impress, rely.
He bequeathed a legacy of incisive social and political perceptiveness and significant creative responses to human experiences, not limited to triumphs and defeats. The recently released deluxe recording We Remember Bob Andy (VPCD2763 ) provides a remarkably significant, unpretending, and spiritual understanding of this extraordinary artiste and songwriter’s creativeness, intellect, and essence. Bob Andy’s life and career were filled with industry respect, critical superlatives, and audience appreciation.
Whether singing his songs, others covering them (which became hits for Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, Marcia Griffiths, and others) or hearing them interpreted by contemporary reggae artistes, as is the case of We Remember Bob Andy , what becomes evident is the scope and depth of the subject matter and entertainment value. Bob Andy’s mastery of his craft and his accomplishments were endowed by and are beholden to the compositional standards set by predecessors like Dan Williams, an authentic songwriter of the mento generation, and Wilfred ‘Jackie’ Edwards, a writer o.
