Andy Mason
Andy Mason is a 2008 Native-E Music Award multiple nominee and Winner ("Mainstream Song of the Year" for his song "Battle Raging")who began playing and singing at the age of seven, playing drums, and singing on stage. By the time he was 17, he had started to learn to play guitar, and was playing music on stage for his school assemblies, and acting in plays.
By 1984, he had been introduced to the coffee house scene in Toronto, and began acting in a theater troupe called Kensington Youth Theater Ensemble of St. Stephens (K.Y.T.E.S.), which toured Canada in 1985, and was the subject of a Sunrise Films documentary directed by Oscar-winning director Deepa Mehta. The documentary featured music by Andy and his sister. Within three years, he had helped form a band playing the music of CSN&Y called 4 Way Street. For the next eight years, they toured mainly Ontario and Quebec from their new home base in Ottawa, Ontario, opening for many major acts along the way: Barney Bentall, Al Stewart, the 5 Man Electrical Band among them. He began helping others to hone their craft, and began to learn other instruments, as well as played in other bands, and did several television appearances on local variety shows and contests. He won male Adult Performer on CJOH's 'Homegrown Cafe' in 1994.
Moving to B.C., he picked up mandolin and some banjo. He produced his own CD, and sessioned on other's CDs. He formed a band called Andy and the Tricksters, playing around the festivals for up to several thousand people. He also acted as background in television shows and feature films.
In 2009, he returned to Ottawa, to pursue music, and develop new music. He presently plays guitar, mandolin, harmonica, drums, percussion, some bass and banjo, and has been called one of the best voices to come out of Ottawa by many who know him or have heard him. Most of the voices and harmonies on his CD "Long Walk 49" (originally recorded in 2000 and 2001) are his own, and he played most of the instruments on this full-length CD, as well as co-produced it.
