Born in Farnham in 1953, Andy Blackwell is a writer, poet, rock and roll archivist and former teenage bowls prodigy who shot to fame with a series of seminal pieces on the burgeoning British music scene of the mid to late seventies. Largely unpublished, his writing attained underground status and set the benchmark for his subsequent output.

His passion for music developed during a stint as roadie for folk duo Albion Parade, a position he gave up when it soon became apparent that, between the two members, there wasn’t really that much to carry. Turning his back on a life on the road, Blackwell devoted himself to his writing and his work reached a larger audience when he was invited to write the liner notes for Turnham Green’s debut album, ‘A Place in the Parsley’.

Having received only a spoken brief, Blackwell misinterpreted the title and his sleeve notes were based almost exclusively on well-worked fish metaphors, relying heavily on the words ‘hook’, ‘scale’ and ‘bass’. It was only after the initial run of records was released that the mistake came to light and these early pressings have since attained mythical status, often fetching up to £35 at record fairs and boot sales.

He has written and self –published many books, including ‘Upon the Mossy Stump’, an anthology of bucolic poetry, several bowls tuition pamphlets and ‘Fleet Services, 3a.m.’, a biography of late-seventies pub-rockers London Bedsits, widely regarded by a few to be the definitive work on the band. Along with rock journalist Chris Tiller, he is currently writing the monolithic ‘All the Suns of Albion’. Eight years in the making and tipped to be the last word on the forgotten music of the British Isles, this ambitious work incorporates large swathes of Blackwell’s earlier Albion Parade memoir, ‘Kit, Vic and Me’.

A keen amateur photographer and schoolboy swimming coach, Andy Blackwell lives with his mother just outside Hastings.

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