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Andy Summers

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Andy Summers is an English guitarist, born in 1942 in Lancashire and raised in Bournemouth. As a teenager he saw Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie play and fell under the spell of jazz guitarists such as Wes Montgomery. In the 1960s he played in London in Zoot Money's rhythm and blues band, which later became psychedelic as Dantalian's Chariot. He then played briefly in Soft Machine and in Eric Burdon's Animals. In Los Angeles he studied classical guitar and composition.

Music and breakthrough

In 1977 he joined The Police, the trio with Sting and Stewart Copeland that emerged from the London punk scene. The band had worldwide hits with Roxanne, Message in a Bottle, Don't Stand So Close to Me and Every Breath You Take, until the group split up at the beginning of 1984. Summers wrote the guitar figure of Every Breath You Take and recorded it in one take with his 1961 Fender Stratocaster. His distinctive sound leaned heavily on chorus and echo effects. In this way a single guitar in a trio could still produce a full, coloured sound.

Influence

After The Police, Summers made two duo albums with Robert Fripp, I Advance Masked (1982) and Bewitched (1984), wrote film music and recorded a long series of solo records, often with jazz, such as a tribute to Thelonious Monk. He also exhibited as a photographer. In 2007 and 2008 he toured again with The Police. His playing showed that a rock guitarist can say more with clever chords and space than with fast solos.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Every Breath You Take by The Police. Notice Andy Summers's guitar: he does not play the chords all at once, but lets the notes sound one by one in a repeating pattern that runs beneath Sting's vocals throughout the whole song.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists