Bob Andy

Bob Andy is a renowned songwriter, reputedly the person whose songs have been redone most by fellow Jamaican performers. His Songbook album is a classic and, when he performs at Calabash 2008 next Sunday, it will be the first time that a songwriter/performer whose work is being celebrated at the annual literary festival will be onstage with the musicians.

Sunday Gleaner: There are times when poetry and song blur, Sonia Sanchez among those poets on past Calabash festivals who infused song into her presentation. And much of Bob Andy's work verges on poetry. Where does the distinction lie and is it necessary to make one in the first place?

Colin Channer: I think a poem becomes a song when you sing it to a melody, and a song becomes a poem when you read it in a speaking voice. The best songwriters like Bob Dylan and Bob Marley and Bob Andy and on his best days Bounty Killer, work with an awareness of meter, imagery, metaphor, simile, compression, rhyme, theme, persona and mood that creates an instant sense of kinship in the hearts of the best poets.

Bob Andy has the eyes and ears of a poet, but what distinguishes him from many other songwriters, what elevates him to the heights of greatness is his sense of subject, his sense of what is worth noticing, what is worth exploring and thereby preserved for all-time. He is a deeply intellectual man, but he conveys his deep intellectualism in a very accessible way, through the form of the popular song. So we can skank to his lyrics and dub to his lyrics, drop legs to his lyrics as much as we sit and just listen to them. And for this reason, he is perhaps the songwriter that is most admired by musicians and other songwriters in Jamaica.

At Calabash people are going to see the strength of his lyrics, his poetry, as great musicians like Seretse Small and Ibo Cooper and Wayne Armond and Stevie Golding join him in a largely acoustic set. This kind of laid-back atmosphere, small stage, the sea behind, will suit Bob very well. Even people who've seen him many times will be amazed.