Release : Andy Pratt - Resolution: The Andy Pratt Collection
Artist : Andy Pratt
Album : Resolution: The Andy Pratt Collection
Genre : Rock
Source : CDDA
Label : Razor & Tie Entertainment
URL :
Date : 00-00-1996
Encoder : LAME 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new
Quality : 188kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 14
Time : 50:56 min
Size : 69.02 MB
1 Avenging Annie 5:08
2 Resolution 3:15
3 If You Could See Yourself (Through My Eyes) 2:53
4 Constant Heat 3:50
5 Karen's Song 3:25
6 Can't Stop My Love 3:09
7 Everything Falls Into Place 3:46
8 That's When Miracles Occur 3:54
9 Some Things Go On Forever 3:11
10 Treasure That Canary 3:33
11 Set Your Sights 3:04
12 Love Song 3:08
13 All I Want Is You 5:19
14 So Faint 3:21
Andy Pratt (born Andrew S. Pratt) is an American rock music singer-songwriter
and multi-instrumentalist. In the 1970s, he made a number of experimental
records that were appreciated by small audiences, and scored a commercial hit
with "Avenging Annie".
After words of praise from Rolling Stone magazine ("By reviving the dream of
rock as an art and then re-inventing it, Pratt has forever changed the face of
rock"), he tried a more commercial approach. Having converted to Christianity
and settled in the Netherlands in 1987, he continued to make records and perform
at big Christian pop music festivals.
Pratt returned to Boston after an absence of 13 years in 2004. The
continually-prolific Pratt has been trying to make a comeback with a new band as
well as solo appearances at regional festivals (such as South By Southwest in
2006). Despite his reputation as a one-hit wonder of the 1970s, Pratt has
released twenty studio albums as of mid-2006.
The great-grandson of oil magnate Charles Pratt, who founded Pratt Institute,
Andy was the son of Edwin H. Baker Pratt, headmaster of exclusive Cambridge,
Massachusetts day school Browne & Nichols School (now Buckingham Browne &
Nichols), which he attended as well. Later, attending boarding school, he tried
to make life more bearable by joining various school bands.
Inspired by The Ventures, he played guitar or bass guitar in Bogus Chimes,
Zinias, and Vagabonds. Pratt attended Harvard College and was awarded an A.B. in
English Literature in 1968 (he missed attending Harvard with Gram Parsons, who
had dropped out in 1963 after one semester). Soon afterward, he released his
debut album, Records Are Like Life (1969), recorded just after his graduation
from Harvard and re-released in 1971 on Polydor. It was not a success.
Pratt worked on his music with Boston-area bands Butter (a pun on Cream) and The
Chosen Few, with whom he toured Europe. Neither the groups nor his first album
were a success outside the Boston area. His family wealth enabled him to build
AEngus Studios, where he broadened his knowledge of recording techniques and
multi-tracking arrangements in the spirit of Van Dyke Parks and Phil Spector.
In 1973, he signed with Columbia Records on the basis of a demo of Avenging
Annie. The vocals on this song (based on Woody Guthrie's Ballad of Pretty Boy
Floyd) took 500 studio hours to record, and range from basso profundo to a
maniacal falsetto. The label released Andy Pratt in 1973, which achieved modest
commercial success on the strength of its hit single. Roger Daltrey recorded a
raunchier version on his solo album One of the Boys. Pratt's version was used on
the soundtrack to the film Velvet Goldmine in 1998.
After an American tour to promote the album, he was dropped by Columbia. In
1975, his father died and Pratt returned to the musical scene with Atlantic
Records. Bee Gees producer Arif Mardin was recruited for a more commercial
approach on Resolution. The result is a somewhat bombastic but more accessible
record, a far cry from the eerie atmosphere of its predecessors. In 1977, after
a final concert for 7000 people in Boston's City Hall Plaza, Pratt was forced to
leave the music industry due to a lack of support.