Andy Connell

Andrew John Connell (born July 26, 1961, Manchester, England) is an English musician and composer. Along with Corinne Drewery, he is part of the duo Swing Out Sister.

Connell began playing the piano at an early age. He struggled through the eight grades of classical piano playing, before finally "abandoning Bach for Bacharach".

Connell played in the Manchester post-punk band The Immediates, before joining new wave funk pioneers, A Certain Ratio. He was also a member of the Manchester based jazz/pop band Kalima who were signed to Factory Records, whilst he was also a member of A Certain Ratio. A few years later he teamed up with former Magazine drummer Martin Jackson, and they released an inventive electronic album called UK Electro in 1984.

Swing Out Sister began in earnest in 1985, when Connell and Jackson teamed up with Drewery. Since the band's establishment, he has been the main composer and arranger for Swing Out Sister's music.

Apart from his work with Swing Out Sister, Connell has produced and arranged music for other artists, and recently he wrote the musical score for a short film called The Knickerman, directed by Sonja Phillips. He also contributed to Quando Quango's album, Pigs & Battleships. In 2006, he also composed incidental music for the ITV1 drama The Outsiders.

Connell did not tour with Swing Out Sister in 2005, due to travel lag. His official statement (using the handle "kinkladze") can be found here. Instead, he picked Dan Swana specifically to fill in for him for the tour. He did however make it for the duo's 2008 promotional concerts in several Asian cities shortly after the launch in Japan of their most recent album, Beautiful Mess.

Connell and Drewery are currently promoting Beautiful Mess at several "unplugged" sessions in clubs throughout the UK during the 2008 year-end. As Drewery puts it in the duo's official website, it would be “a more acoustic set, upclose and personal!”