Horace Andy

Studio One

Horace Keith Hinds was born in Kingston on 19 February 1951. He cut his first single, This Is a Black Man's Country, for the producer Phil Pratt in 1967, and it made little impact. In January 1970 he auditioned for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One. Dodd renamed him Horace Andy, partly to trade on the popularity of Bob Andy and partly to spare him comparison with his cousin Justin Hinds. His first Studio One release was Got to Be Sure.

Skylarking first appeared on a Dodd compilation in 1971, became a sound system hit and was issued as a single. His debut album, also called Skylarking, followed in April 1972, backed by Dodd's house band, Sound Dimension. That August the song topped the Jamaican chart printed in The Gleaner. Andy has said that Studio One was his school, his college and his university.

Bunny Lee and the Bronx

Children of Israel gave him a second Jamaican number one in 1973, the year Trojan issued You Are My Angel. His most successful partnership of the decade was with the producer Bunny Lee. It began with a re-recorded Skylarking and Just Say Who, mixed by King Tubby, and went on to Zion Gate and Don't Try to Use Me.

In 1977 he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, with his first wife, Claudette, and made In the Light for Everton DaSilva's Hungry Town label, with a dub companion mixed by Prince Jammy. Blood and Fire reissued it in 1995, and VP's 17 North Parade did so again in 2016 for his 65th birthday. Wikipedia credits his next album, Pure Ranking, with anticipating dancehall. DaSilva was murdered in 1979.

In 1982 Andy recorded Dance Hall Style for Lloyd Barnes at Bullwackie's studio on White Plains Road in the Bronx. Its six tracks include Money Money, Cuss Cuss and Spying Glass, and Wikipedia calls it groundbreaking. In 1985 he moved to Ladbroke Grove in London with his second wife, Caroline, and the next year he was back with Bunny Lee for Reggae Superstars Meet, shared with Dennis Brown.

Massive Attack

In 1990 he began working with Massive Attack. On Blue Lines (1991) he sang One Love, which he co-wrote, Five Man Army and Hymn of the Big Wheel. He went on to sing on all five of their studio albums through Heligoland (2010), a distinction World Music Network calls unique. Mezzanine (1998) opened with Angel, a new version of his You Are My Angel, and he also sang the John Holt song Man Next Door. The band covered his Spying Glass on Protection.

Their Melankolic label released a best-of, also titled Skylarking, in 1996, and his album Living in the Flood in 1999. In the same years he made Life Is for Living (1995) and Roots and Branches (1997) for Mad Professor's Ariwa label. On stage with Massive Attack he has sung Angel some 140 times, by setlist.fm's count.

Midnight Rocker

He worked with Sly & Robbie on Livin' It Up (2007). Trojan released the live album On Tour (2008) only after a track was removed over homophobic lyrics, a criticism that has followed some of his work. In 2022 came Midnight Rocker, his first record with Adrian Sherwood, for On-U Sound. Mojo called it his best album in 40 years. That November he played an NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert filmed at Sherwood's house.

At the JaRIA Awards in Kingston in April 2023 he received the Icon Award and used his speech to accuse Bunny Lee and Trojan of never paying him royalties, while praising Dodd as the producer who did pay. BMG, which owns Trojan, answered that the 1970s licences had expired and gone back to Lee's estate. In 2024 he and Jah Wobble released Timeless Roots, with new versions of Skylarking, One Love and Spying Glass. A devout Rastafarian whose songs deal with faith and social justice, he was still touring Europe in 2025.