MARION SAUVEBOIS finds out why Andy Fairweather Low has gone back to basics

TEN years ago sideman to the stars Andy Fairweather Low packed in the private jets, five-star suites and sweet comforts of the showbiz junket for a beat-up van, dingy motels and hand-to-mouth solo career.

Pushing 60, the former lead singer of Amen Corner, had successfully weathered a ruthless industry, reinventing himself as the go-to guitarist for the likes of Eric Clapton and Roger Waters in the 1980s.

Taking stock, he came to the stark realisation that: one, he didn’t exactly have his whole life in front of him anymore and two, it was time to be his own master.

“I was in my final third, to put it mildly and it was time to use it,” he says in his warm Welsh lilt.

“I was getting paid well and travelled on the back of somebody else’s music. Don’t get me wrong it was fantastic, but if I was going to become the guitarist I wanted to be, it had to be done.

“I’m back in the van but I’ve made the choice. It’s battered, it’s a wreck but I’ve never been more satisfied.”

Andy first found fame with Amen Corner in the late 1960s. They reached number one in 1969 with (If Paradise is) Half as Nice. The band split in 1969 after just two years and Andy set up a new group Fairweather. Together they bagged one hit, Natural Sinner the following year. In the 70s he chose to go solo and four years later was signed to A&M.

But the wind turned in the 1980s. Once fresh and genre-defining, his music, like much of 1970s big hitters’, came under threat in the advent of the new punk scene. Andy was, for all intents and purposes, old news. He borrowed money from his mother, moved back home and bided his time.

“Punk saw me off,” he recalls matter-of-factly. “I found myself out of work and not able to get any work. I made another album for Warner Brothers, I paid for it myself, but that did nothing. I had never made any money with Amen Corner. It was successful on a public scale but financially it was disastrous.”

Finally a call from Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters wrenched him out of enforced retirement.

“He was looking for someone for a tour,” says the 67-year-old who still calls Wales his home. “I worked with him from 1984 to 2007. It was the most fabulous time – I went round the world twice with him. That put me back on my feet financially. I don’t really like the word but I became the utility.”

This led to gigs touring the world with Eric Clapton. “He sent me a telegram. That tells you how long ago it was,” he laughs heartily.

His CV reads like a Who’s Who of the musical greats: George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Roger Waters, Joe Cocker, Mary J. Blige, Phil Collins and Sheryl Crow to name only a few. Unusually modest for a man who spent his formative years in a world dominated by overblown egos, he insists he had to hone his craft and rehearse tirelessly, unlike Clapton and the other 'naturals' who only had to breeze onto the stage to make magic.

“I have to practise, practise, practise,” he says, “It’s annoying when you work with people who don’t have to. There are people who are natural. I’m not.”

One of the biggest names in the industry, yet woefully overlooked by the public, in 2007 he decided to go it alone once and for all. This time, there was no question of cushy short-cuts.

He released his first solo album in 24 years, Sweet Soulful Music, followed by The Very Best of Andy Fairweather Low in 2008 and returned to the nomadic life of a touring musician, this time on a shoestring, ferrying round in a modest Ford at the mercy of the road’s whims, like so many up-and-comers trying to get their names out.

The most underrated name in music is now slowly gaining belated recognition with his band The Low Riders. It is still early days, he insists, with a chuckle hinting the irony is not lost on him.

“It’s a funny old time for music,” he admits. “It took me a long time to take that step. But I thought ‘I’ve got to stand up under my own name’. I had a great time doing it and I was getting paid well for it but I had had enough of walking in somebody else’s life.”

Back on the road with The Low Riders, his latest tour showcases a selection of his solo material, Amen Corner’s biggest tracks and his favourite covers from the 60s and 70s.

While travelling the length and breadth of the UK and Europe in a clunker often leaves him yearning for the good old days of private planes and complimentary champagne, owning the stage with his own band never fails to remind him why he gave it all up in the first place.

“The gigs wash away any doubts. When I was driving 13 hours to Germany I might have been thinking differently but not when we were performing. I’m doing everything I’ve always wanted to do – which I spent all these years not doing. I haven’t reached the climax yet but that’s what we’re heading for. I’ve only just started”

Andy Fairweather Low and The Low Riders will perform at the Arts Centre on February 14 at 8pm. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524 481.