ANDREWS: ALL SUCCESS, NO TRIUMPH

To all outward appearances, Ernie Andrews has had a successful career. Consider the credits: three major hits during his early years (“Soothe Me,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” “Make Me a Present of You”), 10 years of steady work with the Harry James band, standing ovations everywhere from the Monterey Jazz Festival to jazz parties and clubs, record sessions for at least 17 labels, and only last month a powerful impact during a two-week job in Japan along with pianist Jack Wilson.

Despite all these successes, a good argument could be made--and Andrews would be the first to support it--that the definitive, corner-turning triumph, assuring him permanent economic security, has not yet happened.

Recently, Andrews became the main figure in a documentary film, “Blues for Central Avenue,” in which he reminisces with old friends about the long-gone clubs, many of which are now empty lots. The South-Central scene has faded; presently he is more likely to be found in a Hollywood club (he’s at the Nucleus Nuance on Saturday).

“I’ve been singing all my life,” he says. “I was born on Christmas Day, 1927, in Philadelphia; my parents sang in the Baptist Church. We moved to New Orleans, and in junior high I played the drums, studying music with the legendary trumpeter Bunk Johnson. I was baptized down in the bayou, in alligator-infested waters.

“After moving to Los Angeles at 17 I became an usher at the Lincoln Theater, and won several amateur contests singing there. Joe Greene, the songwriter, heard me and recorded me for his own G&G; label, doing his songs. ‘Soothe Me’ sold over 300,000.”

Despite the early success, he went from one record company to another; most of the products are long gone, though one first-rate album is still available on GNP Records: It comprises sessions by the orchestras of Benny Carter and Ernie Wilkins. The latter actually consisted of all the sidemen from Harry James’ band, with which Andrews began working in 1959.

“Harry was good to me,” he recalls, “but this didn’t turn out to be the break I expected. We worked around Nevada; I lived in Las Vegas, and occasionally we’d go on a long bus tour of one-night stands. Harry never changed my material; every night at 10 p.m. you’d be sure to find me singing ‘Too Close for Comfort,’ and at 10:05 ‘Make Me a Present Of You.’ I got bored, left for a while, gigged and recorded with Cannonball Adderley, rejoined Harry for a year and left him for good in 1969.”

After four years in and out of Baltimore, Andrews returned to Los Angeles. He has worked here with Louie Bellson, Gerald Wilson, Teddy Edwards, and the Juggernaut band; he went to Cincinnati to record there with the Blue Wisp Big Band. This summer he expects to tour Australia with Nat Pierce and a small group.

In short, he keeps working, but there is no record contract and no set plan for his future. Did rock ‘n’ roll or R&B; hurt his chances? He muses: “Well, I tried to make some changes, but you have to please yourself. Jazz is a very special talent; with rock it’s mainly a matter of energy rather than skill and artistry.”

Andrews’ paradox is that he is able to elicit thunderous reactions, yet has never been in constant demand. Some who have followed his career for many years, and who wish him well, attribute the problem to his repertoire: Where once he had songs such as Joe Greene’s that were almost exclusively identified with him, in recent years he has tended to borrow the material, even sometimes the actual sound, of Al Hibbler, Joe Williams, Jimmy Rushing and others.

“Ernie doesn’t need to be the George Kirby or Rich Little of the blues,” one admirer said recently. “He has a wonderful sound of his own, he’s a superb ballad and blues singer, and he should be himself at all times.”

From now on, Andrews hopes to keep the big band jobs at a minimum and concentrate on building his own image as a single. He blames nobody for any setbacks that have come his way. “Whatever happened to me, I did it to myself; but I’m still going to keep on trying.”