Watching and listening to him here, it’s tempting to wonder whether Andy Kim started out as a Neil Diamond tribute act. He certainly had the sideburns, and the voice.
But no, this one-hit wonder from 1974 has been a bona-fide Canadian music legend for more than half a century since then. Under several different names. And he co-wrote Sugar Sugar – one of the biggest hits of all time.
Starting out as a songwriter under his birth name of Andrew Youakim, he began performing as Andy Kim – to disguise his Lebanese ethnicity – before changing the spelling to Andy Kimm in the mid-Seventies.
In the mid-Eighties he became Baron Longfellow (not a real peer) before dropping his ‘title’ and abbreviating it to Longfellow in the early Nineties. Now he’s back to Andy Kim. Who knew?!
Well, Canadians knew. Especially when he released what is a pretty great album in 2014 in collaboration with Kevin Drew of cool Canada collective Broken Social Scene. But first, let’s backtrack a bit.
Born into a Lebanese family who ran a grocery store in Montreal, Andy moved to New York at the age of 16 with $40 in his pocket, dreaming of pop stardom and found a job in the songwriting factory of the Brill Building, alongside the likes of Leiber & Stoller,.
One of his compositions, How’d We Ever Get This Way, impressed Phil Spector’s main man Jeff Barry enough to sign him to his label and release a single, sung by Kim himself – that was a minor hit.
Together they co-wrote the chart-topping Sugar Sugar for fictional band The Archies (13 million singles sold) and the follow-up, imaginatively titled Jingle Jangle, as well as some tunes for The Monkees.
Kim also had a huge hit in his own right (in the US and Canada) with a cover of The Ronettes hit Baby I Love You, written by Barry. That earned him the first Juno – Canada’s version of the Grammys – ever to be awarded.
He hung out with Elvis Presley and Phil Spector (well, none of us knew) and collected a gold disc from John Lennon. He recorded his own song Rock Me Gently and it went to the top of the charts, reaching no.2 in the UK. And that was it for hit singles.
But while we all forgot him, he remained popular in his homeland, where he is a household name. In 2004 he collaborated with The Barenaked Ladies, earning him an award as Best Solo Artist in Canada.
The following year he hooked up with Ron Sexsmith to co-write the affecting What Ever Happened To Christmas, and established an annual Christmas concert for children’s charities in Toronto with guest artists.
His 2014 album It’s Decided, in collaboration with Kevin Drew for the Arts & Crafts label featured musical contributions by members of Tortoise and The Stills – recorded when he was pushing 70 – and made a short documentary about the experience.
So he is clearly a talent, and a very good egg. Even if he does sound a lot like Neil Diamond. And ladies… (or gentlemen)… just don’t look down below the waist. It’s frightening.