The career of jazz singer Ernie Andrews, a bumpy ride for 40-odd years, has settled gently for a time at the corner of Kinzie and Franklin Streets. It`s early morning at the night club known as George`s, and an affable Andrews is sipping coffee and trying to remember the first time he was in Chicago.
”Thirty years ago?” he said. ”That`s right. I came here the first time to perform with Harry James. That was in the late `50s. It was at the Blue Note. Then for about the next 10 years we`d play here two, three times a year, but only at country clubs. I haven`t been here for … 20 years.” He laughs a survivor`s knowing laugh. ”I`m thankful that I`m here now.”
And so should anyone who values the potency of a song well sung, for Ernie Andrews-whether people know it or not-is one of the world`s greatest jazz singers. As critic Anthony Corbett wrote in the liner notes for
”Cannonball Adderley & Ernie Andrews-Live Session”:
”Very few singers epitomize this basic, bare-feet-in-the-mud, utterly human quality, in the great tradition of Mamie and Bessie Smith, Jimmy Rushing and Billie Holiday. Ernie Andrews does. … He is singing today with a maturity and depth developed out of decades of professional experience that render this newest discovery of him both an inevitability and a joy.”
To hear other critics tell it, Andrews deserves to be sitting on the top of the jazz-singer ladder, along with Joe Williams. Instead, at 60 years old, Andrews is still being discovered.
”I`ve got two record contracts in my bag now,” he said, pointing to a heavy brown briefcase. ”But I haven`t sat down to read them. What for? I`ve been on 26 labels in the last 40 years … five majors. And in those 40 years, I`ve gotten one royalty check. Records are okay, but I`m gun shy.”
Andrews-born in Philadelphia on Christmas Day in 1927-made his first record while a student at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, a fertile spawning ground for artists; among Andrews` contemporaries were Chico Hamilton, Alvin Ailey and Eric Dolphy. After school Andrews worked as head usher at the Lincoln Theater, where he often entered amateur contests. It was there that he was discovered by songwriter Joe Greene who took the 17-year-old into the recording studio to make ”Don`t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin` ” and ”Soothe Me,” which sold 300,000 copies.
”In the early days I was like everybody else,” he said. ”Just trying to get on the marquee. I reached it early, but I made a mistake. I thought it would go on forever. I had the zeal but not the knowledge. The bottom fell out, and it`s been a scuffle ever since.”
It was a story of bad record contracts and sour deals, $6-a-night gigs, increasing respect and admiration from musicians but little in the way of public recognition.
”I never wanted to say `Yes` in the wrong places,” he said. ”But I said `No` a couple places where I shouldn`t have. If you love yourself, you just don`t want to take no more whippings. If you can`t be yourself, you can`t have that beautiful, free feeling.”
In 1959 he went on the road as lead vocalist for Harry James and his Orchestra, a high profile spot that should have-might have, could have-brought stardom. It didn`t and though some musicfolk will argue that James never allowed ”Ernie to be Ernie,” the singer puts that matter to bed by saying,
”Harry was a dear friend.”
He continued to work the clubs in and around L.A. In 1983, Ron and Lois Shelton, a pair of young filmmakers (he is currently the acclaimed writer-director of ”Bull Durham”) began following Andrews around, filming him in clubs and as he remembered and revisiting his nurturing ground, the famous jazz strip on Central Avenue. Three years later, the couple`s documentary,
”Ernie Andrews: Blues for Central Avenue,” began winning prizes at film festival`s and shining a bright light on Andrews` remarkable career.
”I`m having fun now,” he said, sipping his coffee. ”I tell people, `Go ahead. Dance. Have fun. You`re not going to bother me at all, because I`m having fun.` I`ve been around a long time. Most of my comrades have gone.
”But I`ve still got (wife) Dolores. I met her at a place called the Jungle Room. She asked me to sing a song. I was 18, and we`ve been together every since. Every man should have a lady like Dolores, a lady who allows you to be you.”
He pauses to look around the sumptuous George`s. A member of the trio that will be playing with him through Sunday tickles the piano keys.
”You can get the wolf off your back, but the lion`s still on your tail,” he said, letting forth a deep, haunting laugh. ”Look at me. I`m still kickin` high as a Brahma bull.”
