When the midlife blues take hold, some guys take to gambling, or philandering, or they buy themselves a motorbike. Andrew bought a Roland RD-600 digital piano and co-founded The Grayceful Daddies swingin’ blues and vintage R’n’B ensemble. Like many good Polish boys and girls, he studied classical piano so that he could entertain visitors with renditions of Chopin’s Études. He tasted rock’n’roll stardom demonstrating Yamaha PortaSound keyboards in the piano room at Eaton’s department store in downtown Toronto. Now music satisfies his craven need to perform, a holdover from his acting days. “To me songs are really just monologues,” he says. “The way I sing, they couldn’t be anything else.” He says the manic persona he adopts when fronting the Daddies owes its inspiration to Tom Waits, Dr. John and the clown princes of jazz and R’n’B—Louis Jordan, Louis Prima, and Louis Armstrong.

The Grayceful Daddies gig regularly at Toronto watering holes, including Grossman’s Tavern on Spadina Avenue and Gate 403 on Roncesvalles, as well as at festivals and at private and corporate functions.

You can also catch Andrew backing writer/performer Peter Unwin as part of spoken word troupe zero horse town. To watch or listen to “zero horse town” at YouTube.com or visit the “Links” page on this site.

You’ve been listening to The Grayceful Daddies performing Andrew’s “Gladstone Hotel.”

Click on the Daddies logo to visit their site.