Andy J. Forest was born in 1955 and has been playing harmonica and singing professionally since 1977. He moved to New Orleans in the 1970s, spent a decade in Europe, and has been back in New Orleans since 1991, playing clubs regularly and touring Europe and Canada, where he has built a loyal following. His first album came out in 1979, and by the time of 2022's I Don't Wanna Work – Modern Vintage Blues (Appaloosa Records), he had put out 20+ albums of mostly original songs — an idiosyncratic blend of harmonica blues and boogie-woogie delivered in a deadpan, storyteller's style.
Forest counts Sonny Terry, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield, Taj Mahal, and Charlie Musselwhite among his influences, and he has shared stages with B.B. King, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Johnny Shines, Champion Jack Dupree, and James Booker. His album Real Stories: Of Love, Labor and Other Man-Made Catastrophies won Best Blues Album at OffBeat's 2007 Best of the Beat awards, and he plays in the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio.
He is also a writer and painter: his novel Letter From Hell is a hellish tour of life on the road, with an accompanying CD of his band's music from the underworld, and he paints in an outsider-art style.
