Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hello, my friends. Thank you so much for deciding to spend some time with me.
Some of you are going to know the name and music of my guest today, but there’ll be others who may not instantly recognise him. So I’d like to fill you in a little bit before I introduce you. He was born in Montreal, Canada and knew at the tender age of 12 that his future lay in music.
He’s famous for several international hits that he released in the late 60s and 70s, like this one. Rock me gently, rock me slowly Take it easy, don’t you know That I have never been loved like this before Baby, baby Rock me gently, rock me slowly Take it easy, don’t you know That I have never been missed before He is, of course, Andy Kim, the much-loved and awarded Canadian pop rock singer and songwriter who co-wrote the song Sugar Sugar for fictional pop stars The Archies that became Record of the Year in 1969. I think you’re really going to enjoy meeting Andy today, not only to get to know a little bit more about him and his music, but to hear him talk about the way he views life.
His positivity and optimism really landed with me, and I think it might just do the same with you. So happy to be here. So when I grew up, I never saw a photo of you and I always pictured you as some blonde-looking version of a David Cassidy guy.
Well, I was 6’2″, weighed 163 pounds and had long hair, but it was black. I wasn’t the only one who had that impression of you, though, was I? Yeah, you know what? What’s interesting is many years ago, I finally realised that people know my music, but they don’t know me. They don’t know who’s the performer and the songwriter.
And I’ll tell you a secret. I have been blessed by one of God’s angels throughout my life. And so I am where I’m supposed to be in the condition I’m supposed to be in.
So I’ve had an incredible life. And I would always ask myself, and I ask my friends and I’m gonna ask you, but this is what I ask myself. What are you doing with your one and only life? And for me, it was doing exactly what I wanna do.
I didn’t wanna listen to anybody telling me any different. I was going to sail my life the way I had imagined it. And here I am on the back porch of my days.
So tell us about your life. You’re the product of Lebanese immigrants. And in your teens, you moved to New York.
Was that by yourself or was that with your parents? By myself, I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. And as I look back, I think about the fact that my destiny had already been predicted because of where I came from and the area I was living in. But a transistor radio transported me from where I was to New York City and WABC radio station.
And the music not only blew me away, it was something that I didn’t understand, but there was something that was happening inside of me. It’s when the disc jockeys started talking about the lives of those artists that were coming to town. They’re gonna be performing here.
They’re gonna be doing this. We’re gonna have them on the show. For me, I just all of a sudden felt, well, I wanna do this.
I want this to be my life. ♪ 97 WABC radio station with a hern ♪ We’ll be talking to our hern in a little while. I wasn’t born a musician.
I wasn’t born into a musical family. So this dream allowed me to search my two older brother’s bedroom and see that they had music books. And so I would go through them and there would always be something that talked about the songwriters.
It wasn’t just the artists that they spoke about. And a place called the Brill Building, 1619 Broadway. The Brill Building was called Tin Pan Alley.
Have you ever heard that term? Yeah, absolutely. That’s where all the great songwriters in the 20s and all the songwriters that wrote for big bands and for Sinatra and Tony Bennett and all of those artists. It’s really a building that housed publishers and songwriters for the most part.
So that added to my dream. I’m gonna be part of that world. And I really think that if you believe something beyond comprehension and it’s honest and it’s true and it’s filled with adventure and love, you will find it.
So as a teenager, I went and was lucky enough that someone heard me and liked what they heard and my career got started. ♪ Girl I love you, you know I do ♪ ♪ And I do not doubt that you love me too ♪ ♪ But you’re so young, your life’s just begun ♪ ♪ Something tells me there’ll come a day ♪ ♪ When you just might wonder what slipped away ♪ ♪ While you’ve been with me ♪ ♪ And you will want to be free ♪ ♪ So shoot em up baby, shoot em up baby ♪ ♪ Shoot em up baby, get on out there ♪ 1619 Broadway was a songwriter’s heaven for me. So what did you do? You just walked in there and presented yourself? I walked in and I asked for a person by the name of Jeff Barry.
So Jeff Barry and his wife, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector, they wrote Be My Baby, The Do Run Run, so many huge records. But I think the one that influenced me was Ronnie Spector singing Be My Baby. The beginning of that song allowed me to realize that I don’t know what this is.
I don’t understand what it is or how it was created. And as I said, God sent an angel to clarify things for me and give me the push that I needed to not so much run away from home, but dream of something that did not exist where I lived. ♪ The night we met I knew I needed you so ♪ ♪ So won’t you say you love me? ♪ ♪ Every place we go, so won’t you be there for me? ♪ My parents never liked what I did.
I used to send them my gold records and when I’d come home they’d be all in the living room but they could have been on the ceiling because they really didn’t care about that. They just wanted me home. And I just wanted not to be home.
So back to the Brill Building. So you’ve gone and asked for Jeff Barron. Yes, first of all, there was a secretary and he was in Lieber and Stoller’s offices.
He had his own place and stuff. And I asked to see Jeff Barron. He said, well, do you have a meeting? I said, no, but I’m here from Canada and I think a couple of minutes just to meet him, you know? So the couple of minutes ended up being about a couple of hours.
And then she said, okay, he’ll see you now but he only has five minutes. And I walked into the office and I still remember his. He’s 6’4″, his legs and feet are on the table and he’s talking quietly into a phone for about, I’d say it felt like a lifetime but it could have been about half an hour.
And then he looked at me and he said, okay, so what do you got? I said, well, I started writing this song and I had a guitar, I had tuned it on my own. I then just played him the song and said, you know, I need more lyrics here. And he loved the song.
He said, so why don’t you go and finish it? And then when you’re done, come back. And I said, well, you know, I live in Montreal, I live in Canada and I’m only here till tomorrow. And he said, well, do what you can to finish it and then send it or get ahold of me or come back, you know? And he says, I have to go now because I need to be in the studio.
And I said, I think the most courageous words in the world that opened the key for me. I said, excuse me, can I come with you? I’ve never been in a studio. Now here’s a guy who’s already had Causinian records.
He’s in the Rock and Roll Songwriters Hall of Fame. He looked at me and he said, have you had lunch? And I hadn’t. And he said, I usually have a sandwich and I don’t eat the other half so I’ll give it to you.
And I found myself actually walking down the street with him. He’s having a sandwich and I’m eating and nothing is said. And then we find our way into a studio and then he waved me to sit down on the couch.
So I sat down and I was listening to stuff that was going on, but I really didn’t understand what was going on. And then I got to get up and I saw that him wave his hand for me to continue to sit down. And I felt that I had accomplished what I needed to accomplish for that moment in time.
And it started a relationship where I was given the ability to learn my craft, to be around some of the best songwriters, artists. And I just feel again, it’s not about anything other than what do you believe in? Who are you? And why are you here? What is your life about? So it’s been a cool ride. So you really owe a whole lot to Jeff Barry and what was that song that you’d started writing? How’d we ever get this way? ♪ Look at you baby, look at me ♪ ♪ So in love we used to be ♪ ♪ But now it’s just a memory ♪ ♪ Baby, how’d we ever get this way? ♪ ♪ Baby, how’d we ever get this way? ♪ ♪ Well, I recall when things were fine ♪ ♪ And the other day the sun would shine ♪ ♪ When I was yours and you were mine ♪ ♪ Baby, how’d we ever get this way? ♪ ♪ Tell me baby, how’d we ever get this way? ♪ Yes, and just to be around him because he didn’t really teach me in the ordinary way of being taught.
I would bring ideas and songs and lyrics and melodies and he’d say, well, I like that and I like this, but I don’t like that lyric, but that one is good. And I learned that way what he appreciated. And it gave me a focus on how many lyrics you can bring to the table.
You’ve got to be able to work it out. So you’re done in two minutes and 30 seconds. So did you stay in New York City or did you continue commuting from Montreal? I continued to commute and then I came back.
The most embarrassing thing was one time I had called and my mom picked up and I spoke to her for a while. And about a couple hours later, I called, I mean, it’s collect and the operator said, are you calling your mom again? And I really felt like, well, yeah, yeah, that’s who I’m calling. And they were expensive calls to make, too, at the time.
Well, you know, when I think about the early days of the Brill Building and making records and now you can make records in your basement and you can have a guitar player in another country play on that record and and you bring it all together in technology. I understand the leap. I won’t be around till I know that the leap beyond me is going to be absolutely incredible, because the fact that they had two track recording and Phil Spector recorded You’ve Lost Eleven Feeling on four tracks, then was eight.
Now it’s infinite. There’s no tenderness like. You’re trying hard not to show.
But they. Oh, there’s no. Andy Kim, I’m astounded by how you look, I know how old you are because I know what year you were born and you look half your age.
You got a secret you can share. What are you? What’s what’s how do you see me? You know what it is living my best life, that’s what it is. And I’m also someone who lives the moment.
So if the day before was a tough day, it never showed up the following day. And if there were things that bothered me, I learned the lessons from them and it just made me stronger the next day. But I never carried any of that because it’s a brand new day and you’re in a certain amount of heartbeats and you don’t know how many you’ve been given.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. I love your attitude, there’s so much we can learn from you. Let’s get back to your music though, because as time went on and your relationship with Jeff Barry developed, you actually started co-writing with him and I think a lot of people wouldn’t know about you that you wrote with him Sugar Sugar for the Archies.
Oh honey honey You are my candy girl And you got me wanting you Honey Oh sugar sugar You are my candy girl And you got me wanting you I just can’t believe the loveliness of loving you I just can’t believe it’s true I just can’t believe the wonder of this feeling too I just can’t believe it’s true How did that come about? Well it came about the fact that, I don’t know if anyone in your world would know the name Don Kirshner or would you? Yeah we do, of course we do. Okay so that was the you had the Midnight Special and he also chose all the music for the Monkees and when the Monkees were cancelled, he heard that there was a comic book that was going to be on Saturday morning television and the comic book was called the Archies and the Archies with Betty and Veronica and he thought well maybe there should be music and maybe we can make records just the way the Monkees made records, you know? So you’re asked to write songs and those songs are one of a hundred or two hundred submissions, it’s in the hands of the gods after that. Did you actually sing on that one too? I sang on it, the initial demo was made I was the vocalist but my record company did not want me to do the Archies but I sang backgrounds and there’s a phenomenal artist by the name of Ron Dante who did the vocals and I think his version is just brilliant.
Andy also wrote for the Monkees for their final album in 1970 That was their last album, they needed an album to finish their time with RCA and again you never know who’s going to like your song. Unless you’re part of a band, someone in the band writes for you or someone co-writes, that’s what the Brill Bending was about to be honest with you. I mean you get the likes of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, you get the likes of Carole King and Jerry Goffin and Barry Mann and Cynthia Wilde who just passed away.
All these songwriters would write songs and they would make demos and someone would go and try and get an artist or a band to record them. So that’s really the essence of the Brill Building more than just artists. So it’s kind of the luck of the draw and that’s why I’m smiling these days.
You make my heart sing You make my life Life is such, there’s so much to discover To uncover it, it’s gonna take a while Oh mama, I could love you forever Oh mama, I only wish that I could Oh mama, I could love you forever Oh mama, you feel so good Those years 1969, 1970, you were really on top of your game. You were working with Jeff Barry. 69 is when you in fact had two top hit singles.
Rainbow Ride, which made the US Top 40 and of course Baby I Love You which has been your biggest hit to date, which was huge everywhere. Where were you taking your inspiration? Well Can I tell you a secret? Please. I don’t know.
Someone once said that your children come from you but they don’t belong to you. You are the bow and they are the arrow. And so they must fly in their own way.
And I think songs are, well Carole King talks about the fact that she doesn’t know where they came from and Bob Dylan says I don’t know where they came from, they just happened. And I think what they’re saying and what I’m saying is that the idea is floating around everywhere and you may say oh I love this idea. And then you have the inspiration to go and do something with it.
I’m going to make your life so sweet. You don’t sit down and say I’m going to make your life so sweet. No one’s ever said that to me.
Well, there’s still a long way to go you know. I’ve heard a lot of artists say that they just, songs drop like just from heaven or when you’re asleep they just appear. Yeah, it’s happened to me.
I just, you know, I keep a pad and pen of something. You kind of write it down and go back to sleep. Right.
So when you had that, well particularly the biggest hit, Baby I Love You, did it change your life? Well, everything changed my life from where I started. But kind of my life was set in stone of who I am, what I am, what I believe in, what I try to do, what I am inspired to do. It allowed me to travel and continue to make records.
And obviously to make a living you know, and a great one. The interesting thing is that you know, we live in a very fickle world and we always have. It’s just that, I’ll give you an interesting statistic that someone told me a while back.
So May 24th, 1969 Baby I Love You hit the billboard charts for the first time on its way to becoming a million seller. And May 24th 1969, same day, maybe not the same hour, but the same day Sugar Sugar was released. But nobody wanted to play it till the middle of July.
Why? Well because it was the year of Woodstock. It was the year we were going to the moon. There was political unrest in the U.S. People were writing songs that the Doors were writing.
This song just kind of, I think radio stations stayed away from comic book characters. They just wanted to be more serious. Songs were developing where, you know there’s MacArthur Park and not 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but 5 minutes and whatever.
I love that song. But you know for me, there was a time when people were done with pop songs. At least radio was for a while.
And then on a bet a radio station in San Francisco played it one time and you know there were no cell phones back then. The phone calls that came in kind of just jammed all their phones because they wanted to hear that song. So now we have millions and millions of records sold around the world for that one song.
And whether you’re 5 or 105, you know that song. And people will ask me why. I said I don’t know.
I just loved that song when we wrote it. Have I ever told you How good it feels to hold you It isn’t easy to explain I know I’m really trying I think I may start crying My heart can’t wait another day When you touch me I just got to say Come on baby na-na-na-na-na-na I can’t live without you I love everything about you All I know is that it went to number one and it pushed the stones out of first place and it was there for four weeks and five years to the day I had my biggest record ever with Rock Me Gently. Ah, okay.
So that came out in the spring of 1974. I’d imagine that you’d written a whole heap of songs in the interim. Look, you can just go back to two minutes and thirty seconds.
So if you have a huge hit and the next one is not as big as the other one it’s just like eventually you kind of fade away. But I never faded away from myself. I always had the best time writing songs and making records.
But Rock Me Gently was the first one that I was actually the artist, the songwriter, the producer, and eventually the publisher and eventually the record company. Because nobody wanted to put it out so I put it out on my own. Really? Yeah.
Why did you believe in that one so much more strongly than any previous one? I believed in all of them the same. It’s just the others, there was a team behind me that believed as well. This time I was on my own.
But it didn’t matter. It only matters what you think. They didn’t like it? To everyone I had lived my two minutes and thirty seconds.
It was done. So they were looking for a younger me, something, whatever. But I don’t listen.
That’s the key to my life. You go with your gut feel. Why do you have one if you can’t go there? Makes sense.
And it certainly proved you right, didn’t it? Because that song went on to sell millions of copies right around the world. It was your second gold disc. You’d already picked up the Gold Leaf, the Juno Award in 1970 in Canada as Best Male Vocalist.
You were riding the crest of the wave as they say. You know the songs that one writes, I’m sure that every songwriter has a song that they feel is the most important one they’ve ever written or has filled them up more than any other song. I don’t feel that way.
I just feel like today is today. It happens when it’s supposed to happen maybe. So today is today.
Touching you, so warm and tender Lord, I feel such a sweet surrender Beautiful is the dream that makes you mine Rock me gently, rock me slowly Take it easy, don’t you know That I have never been loved like this Baby, baby Rock me gently, rock me slowly Take it easy, don’t you know How did you get so philosophical? You were like that since a child? Yeah. My brothers would kind of push me around, you know. Yeah, the philosophers here.
At five or six years old, I saw everything from a different place. But I always understood that love was the key. Love was not to be scattered around, you know.
Love is such an important part of being philosophical if that’s what you want to call it. I don’t see myself from a philosophical place. I just see myself saying things that other people may think, wow, that’s pretty philosophical.
But you should know one thing. I don’t remember what I say. That’s why I always have a pad.
If something comes to me right now I’ll excuse myself and get the guitar and just say, yeah, yeah, I kind of remember this. Because you can’t live someone else’s life. So that also explains the million emails that have flown between you and I when you said, yeah, I’ll talk to you.
Yes, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Tomorrow was like a month later. And for that I apologize.
No, no apology necessary at all. But it’s quite understandable in the way you live your life. And that’s why there’s no wrinkles on your face.
Because you don’t hold on to anything. You just let it go into the ether. And that’s great.
What an awesome way to live. I really wish I could do a bit of that. Anyway, if I did do that, we wouldn’t be here now.
Because I would have forgotten that we’d ever arranged to speak. Well, I think there’s a partnership in that way. As Andy mentioned, by 1974 he was labelless.
So he formed his own Ice Records and personally financed the recording session for Rock Me Gently. He played it for a friend who brought it to Capitol Records which signed him and released it as a single. The song debuted on the Hot 100 but took 14 weeks to reach number one and it remained on the charts for a staggering four months.
It was Andy’s second number one song and it certainly added to his international success. Suddenly, again, Andy Kim was a star. He met Elvis.
He hung out with Phil Spector. John Lennon handed him his gold record. The song itself resurfaced in 2007 in a TV commercial for the Jeep Liberty and it appeared in two episodes of the television series Ray Donovan as well as in the 2016 movie Weirdos.
Unfortunately though, Rock Me Gently would be Andy Kim’s last top 10 hit.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Currently work under the name Andy Kim, but you have some other pseudonyms that you utilize also.
Can you explain the genesis of all your various names? Well, my birth name is Andrew which became Andy, and the last three letters of my real name are K-I-M, so it became Andy Kim. I had nothing to do with that. The record company put the record out, and I had a hit, and then it’s who you are.
But in the late 70s, I was mostly a songwriter trying to get people to record my songs, and so I made some demos. And there’s a gentleman that heard a demo of a song I wrote that so excited him that he wanted to meet me. And so he met me and loved the song, and he looked at me, he said, you look more like a barren longfellow than an Andy Kim.
Now, you got a picture, 6’2″, dark hair, whatever it is, and okay, you always believed in the song being more important than the person. So he told me to think about it, and I thought about it with the knowledge that he had already changed the name of the artist that he was managing. One of them was Tom Woodward.
Tom Woodward became Tom Jones. Jerry Dorsey became Engelbert Humperdinck, and Raymond Sullivan became Gilbert O’Sullivan. So the thought was that Andy Kim would replace Engelbert because he had a falling out with Engelbert, and Engelbert had a falling out with him.
I just figured, you know, what do I have to lose here? It may work. Unfortunately, he passed away, so now I was on my own. And I went and recorded this song called Amor.
If love was just a moment Please let me spend this moment with you If life was just a memory Please let me remember Our hearts are just like flowers Let’s fragilize the hours we spend Let’s hold on to this memory And never let this moment ever end Do you hear my precious song My carillon, my cherie d’amour Yeah, yeah From the soleil du jour To la tour du jour My cherie d’amour Radio stations started to play it, and they said, and that’s Baron Longfellow, but we all know him as Andy Kim. Well, that kind of blew it all apart. Nobody knew Tom Woodward before he became Tom Jones, but everybody knew Andy Kim before he became Baron Longfellow.
So I kind of hung on to it until I really, really became irrelevant. And it was only after writing a song with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies and having a hit with that song that Andy Kim was reborn. To say that I love you Would be an injustice It’s not that they don’t like you It’s just they don’t trust us Can’t say, can’t mention You’re just like a schoolboy You are my reflection Just a good deception They got all the news In 1995, Andy Kim and Ed Robertson crossed paths at the Kumbaya Festival where both artists were performing.
Nearly a decade later, Ed reached out to Andy. Initially, Andy was hesitant, feeling that his time in the spotlight had passed. However, Ed’s belief in his talent set Andy’s passion for music off again.
The song quickly gained traction throughout Canada, becoming a top 20 hit. Its success marked a significant milestone in Andy’s career. I’m just going with the day.
I’m not trying to change anything or be anything other than how do I feel today? Who am I? I know who I am. And so I hold on to that person and I listen to that person. Where would I be without the success? Well, I wouldn’t be talking to anybody on a Zoom call.
People wouldn’t be interested in me. I would just be someone doing something, you know. So I’m interested in a couple of things that you said.
Firstly, that you say you became irrelevant, and I’m not sure exactly when you saw yourself as irrelevant. And secondly, your songwriting also obviously continued, but was it that the emphasis changed? Instead of trying to write songs that were commercially successful, were you more concentrating on writing songs that you actually liked? And is that why it didn’t matter if it wasn’t a huge success? No. To both parts? No.
To both parts of the question. It’s just how you write when you grow up and you grow to the fabric of how you’re living your life. You can write Sugar Sugar in 10 minutes and sell gazillion records around the world.
But after you’ve written Sugar Sugar, I never kept on writing Sugar Sugar and trying to get another Sugar Sugar. Rock Me Gently was completely different from Baby I Love You and How’d We Ever Get This Way and my version of Be My Baby. The night we met I knew I needed you so And if I had the chance oh I’d never let you go So won’t you say you love me I’ll make you so proud of me We’ll make them turn their heads Every place we go So come on and be Be my, be my baby Be my little baby Say you’ll be my darling Be my, right now I just think it’s a matter of knowing that this is where your heartbeat lives.
You can have a heartbeat at 16, you can have a heartbeat at 26, at 36. And maybe the lessons that you’ve learned along the way or you just grow into your destiny. So actually I don’t think your answer should be no to my question because you weren’t chasing commercial success.
You were writing from the heart the songs that you wanted to write. You’re wrong. Oh, still wrong? Yeah, because I didn’t chase anything.
Not even in the first place? No, I just wanted to be part of the jungle of musicians and artists and being part of that circus. So the things that I wrote that were successful were part of the fabric of what was going on that day. So later on, you know, you go from you are my candy girl to rock me gently.
You’re older. You’re seeing. I hate to say that you’re wrong.
So maybe I’ll change the way. That’s okay. I can handle that.
I’m often told I’m wrong. That’s fine. I’m used to it.
Well, no, no, no. I hear what you’re saying with that, though. I get where you’re coming from completely.
What about the fact that you say when I became irrelevant? When did you become irrelevant in your eyes? I never became irrelevant to me. It was the industry that told me I’m irrelevant. In other words, I would write songs and send it to record companies and not have my name on it.
And I have this wonderful, wonderful attorney who handled my music. And they would call and they say, we want to sign this artist. Who is he? And they say, well, that’s Andy Kim.
They say, oh, no, he’s already had a career. People know too much. No, no, no.
So I never tired of myself. I just know that people got tired of hearing or they just wanted something new or there’s always a new fashion that exists. And maybe that’s why I think I was very blessed and lucky to be there at that time.
Was I unlucky later on? No, I was just different. But my luck originally came from an environment that accepted that kind of music. Did it bother you? Yes, but I understood it.
Just the way the artists of the 40s and 50s and 60s were pushed aside to what was going on in the 70s and the 70s was pushed aside to the artists that were doing the 80s and the 90s and that kind of stuff. So I found myself outside of the circus. It didn’t depress me.
It bothered me a little bit, but I understood it. How did you spend that time? What did you do with yourself then? I kept writing songs. I kept sending songs.
You know, success is a great bank account, so you don’t have to go and work at McDonald’s or something like that. What do you do for a hobby? Do you play golf? No. I read.
I have a couple of wonderful friends. I once upon a time loved going to the movies and now the movies come to me. But I don’t think I have a hobby in the sense that people have hobbies.
I’m my hobby, if that makes sense. So just going back to writing with Bare Naked Ladies. I had performed a song with the Bare Naked Ladies.
As a matter of fact, one of their favourite songs was Rock Me Gently, so I ended up doing it and Ed and I struck up a wonderful friendship. I loved Ed and then Kevin drew a broken social scene, showed up and he said, I want to record a new Andy Kim album. And I said, I think those days are over.
And he said, no, no, we’re going to do an album together and ended up doing The David Letterman Show and ended up just going to places that I never thought I’d go to. And then Courtney Love showed up on stage and sang Sugar Sugar with me. So yesterday comes into your future and into your present and reminds everybody that OK, well… In the night there’s a full wind cry Saying all my time, all my fire And I was awake to see Every day I can see where the hurt lies Getting harder, getting longer For you to rescue me I’m on, I’m on Augustine It’s all decided, it’s all decided In the war of the words we find I’m an insider, upside downer Without the right to leave I think it’s important not to look over your shoulders as to what someone else is doing.
Find out what you’re doing. Find out how you are doing today and don’t carry the hurts of yesterday with you because you’re wasting your heartbeats. And that’s the last thing Andy Kim ever wants to do.
That 2015 album called Decided reinvented his career. All of a sudden a whole new generation of fans were talking about him. Then in 2019 Andy was awarded a stack of honours including the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.
And in 2023 received an Office of the Order of Canada. Huge honours for a boy who grew up in the tenements of Montreal. Yeah you know when I heard about the Officer of the Order of Canada I thought it was a joke and then I started crying because I wish my mum and dad were around.
Because the representative country is kind of bigger than all hit records and all gold records and I’m honoured that I’m part of that moment in time. And I can’t thank you enough for your time. Andy Kim an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
Thank you. You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye.