I honed my skills alongside the late, great drummer Raffa Dean, who initiated me on percussion at Toronto's famous Bamboo Club throughout the 90s. Raffa played drums on the demo tape that landed me my first record deal with Kingston…

Flanked by my bandmates from Toronto, Ras Kawintseb and Tomaz "Moose" Jardim, I arrived at Kingston Musik in Jamaica, and was greeted by the owner and CEO, Peter Blake. The next morning he introduced me to an irie dread named…

Within a year of assembling the Halfway Tree band in Toronto, my demo cassette found its way to Kingston Muzik CEO Peter Blake, who invited me to Jamaica to record seven tracks to complete my first full-length album What If…

Andru Branch & Halfway Tree germinated in 1995. Clockwise, from left to right: Art Gold (trombone), Ras Kawintseb Sellassie (lead guitar and backing vocals), David Slater (saxophone), Mike Goodridge (drums), Tomaz "Moose" Jardim (rhythm guitar), Andru Branch (vocals, keyboards and…

After cutting my teeth with Toronto bands Jericho, Solid Foundation and Rockstone in the late 80s and early 90s, I went out on my own. This was the cover of my 'demo' cassette aptly entitled "Branchin' Out", shot by reggae…

The human condition forces us all to consider our ultimate demise. I have come to terms with the one guarantee in life; that we will all one day return to the place from whence we came. I believe that accepting…

Throughout the 1970s most 7” 45 rpm singles manufactured in Jamaica included a B-side instrumental version of the A side, simply titled “VERSION”. This was in response the rapidly growing popularity of ‘toasters’ aka mic MCs, who would speak over…

As a young teenager growing up in Toronto in the early 80s one couldn’t help but be lured by the infectious music that became known as “two-tone ska”. UK band The Specials embodied the multi-racial sound and look for which…

With all of its similarities to reggae, I have never been particularly drawn to country music. For some reason however, my infatuation with a beautiful young art student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design inspired this little…

Immediately following my Mom’s funeral I went to visit my Dad in Fredericton. Saddened by the passing of his former wife, he tried but failed to comfort me. My Mom had been my closest person. Living alone together for over…

This song opens with a familiar expression in Jamaican patios, roughly translated: “What the @#$% is going on?” These were words uttered on a regular basis by the Jamaican studio owner who signed me with his independent label at Kingston…

Reggae music crept into the streets of Kingston in the mid-1960s as the voice of the oppressed; Jamaica’s underprivileged in a society in civil unrest. The island struggled with poverty but the former British colony had bred an industrious and…