Andy Summers

  • Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - I Advance Masked [A&M Records SP-4913] (1982)
  • Andy Summers - XYZ [MCA Records MCA-42007] (1987)

Also Appears On

  • Joan Armatrading - Back To The Night [A&M Records SP-3141] (15 June 1975)
  • The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta [A&M Records SP-3720] (3 October 1980)
  • The Police - Ghost In The Machine [A&M Records SP-3730] (2 October 1981)
  • The Police - Synchronicity [A&M Records SP-3735] (1 June 1983)
  • Sting - ...Nothing Like The Sun [A&M Records SP 6402] (1 October 1987)

Biography

Andrew James Somers (born 31 December 1942) known professionally as Andy Summers, is an English guitarist who was a member of the rock band The Police. Summers has recorded solo albums, collaborated with other musicians, composed film scores, and exhibited his photography in galleries.

Summers' professional career began in the mid-1960s in London as guitarist for the British rhythm and blues band Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, which eventually came under the influence of the psychedelic scene and evolved into the acid rock group Dantalian's Chariot. He is one of the ''two main love interests'' in Jenny Fabian and Johnny Byrne's 1969 book Groupie, in which he is given the pseudonym ''Davey''.

After the demise of Dantalion's Chariot, Summers joined The Soft Machine for three months and toured the United States. For a brief time in 1968, he was a member of The Animals, then known as Eric Burdon and the Animals, with whom he recorded one album, Love Is. The album features a recording of Traffic's ''Coloured Rain'', which includes a guitar solo by Summers which runs a full 4 minutes and 15 seconds. To ensure he ended at the right place, Zoot Money kept count throughout the solo and gave him the cue out at bar 189. The LP also included a reworked version of Dantalion's Chariot's sole single ''Madman Running Through the Fields''.

After five years in Los Angeles, mostly spent at California State University, Northridge, he returned to London with his American girlfriend Kate Lunken.

In London, Summers recorded and toured with acts including Kevin Coyne, Jon Lord, Joan Armatrading, David Essex, Neil Sedaka and Kevin Ayers. In 1975 he participated in an orchestral rendition of Mike Oldfield's seminal ''Tubular Bells''.

In 1977, Summers was invited by ex-Gong bassist Mike Howlett to join his band Strontium 90, but was soon coaxed away by future Police bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland. [wikipedia.org]