Andy Bassford, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is the reggae legend you’ve never heard of. After initially playing several years in rock, reggae, latin jazz, and country bands, he then was discovered by Horace Andy, which led to his recording debut on the classic album ‘In The Light’ in 1977. In 1980 he went to Jamaica and began playing on sessions with the Roots Radics. Soon after he joined Lloyd Parks and We The People, thus performing or recording with nearly every reggae artist of the era, most notably Dennis Brown. Upon his return to the US in late 1980’s he joined Toots and the Maytals among many others and became the house guitarist for the seminal Studio One label. Currently, Andy performs internationally in Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express reggae-jazz fusion project, with whom he has also recorded two albums. In 2003, he was honored by the Jamaica Federation of Musicians for Outstanding Contributions to the Jamaican Music Industry, one of the only-non Jamaicans to receive this award. In 2019, he won his first Grammy as a composer and guitarist on Sting & Shaggy’s “44/876”, which took the honor of best Reggae album. Andy Bassford’s first ever solo album “The Harder They Strum” pays homage to the movie and album that lured Andy into the wonderful world of Jamaican music. Continue reading Reggae Guitar Legend’s Debut Solo album! ANDY BASSFORD “Harder They Strum” LP vinyl / 8 TRACK TAPE sold out
Tag: andy bassford
THE ATTRACTORS “Love Bombs” LP / CD / Tape – all star instrumental ska/reggae/jazz band returns!
Since the (Brooklyn) Attractor’s award-winning release “Good Evil Alchemy” in 2012, the instrumental Ska and Reggae group has been refining their formula and adding to an already impressive list of guest musicians. In addition to three-time Grammy winning guitarist and Toots and Maytals guitar legend, Andy Bassford, 27 year congalero for Gill Scott Heron, Larry McDonald, Easystar Allstars trombonist, Buford O’sullivan, and Mephiskapheles bass extraordinaire, Dan Jeselsohn, their 3rd full-length studio release “Love Bombs” adds Skatalites main stay, Ken Stewart, Stubborn Allstars founder, King Django, Slackers tenor man, David Hillyard, as well as Thaddeus Merritt, the original Bass player and founding member of the Boston Ska group Westbound Train, to the list of credits. Love Bombs was written and recorded primarily during Covid era lockdown times and the music therein reflects that energy. This isn’t another rosy Ska record, it’s raw, dark, and even downright evil at times, all while maintaining a sense of searching and forward momentum. After all, that’s what tough times require. There is no doubt that the line up, writing, musicianship, as well as stylistic approach, contained within Love Bombs, will not disappoint even the most discerning Ska and Reggae fans. Red and blue vinyl boh limited to 150 copies each!
Cassette Store Day 2019 – Twelve new tapes including THE SLACKERS, MUSTARD PLUG, THE PIETASTERS, THE SKATALITES and MEPHISKAPHELES!
Jump Up is leading the way supporting cassette culture with 12 releases for the yearly Cassette Store Day celebration! We lead ALL LABELS with the most new titles dropping on Saturday October 12th! One again we ask you to call a participating shop and request that they stock our titles for the day – we want to support brick and mortar stores first. As always we will be offering our titles on our website that day we do understand that not everyone is close to a participating store. Tapes are fun and inexpensive, and are always more limited than the vinyl or CD versions. In many cases tapes allow us to add bonus material that we simply can’t fit on a vinyl record. In this day and age it seems everything is available on vinyl and records have become mainstream, thus cassette culture has really taken off once again for true collectors. Do yourself a favor and pick up a vintage tape deck or boombox this year – you’ll be glad you did! For a list of participating shops go to the Cassette Store Day site HERE. To see close ups on the tapes and videos of them playing on our vintage boombox collection – follow us on Instgram
