Greedy Smith
Birth name: Andrew McArthur Smith
Also known as Andy Smith
Born 16 January 1956 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died 2 December 2019 (aged 63) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Genres New wave, rock
Andrew McArthur Smith
(16 January 1956 – 2 December 2019), known professionally as Greedy Smith, was an Australian vocalist, keyboardist, harmonicist and songwriter with Australian pop/new wave band Mental As Anything.
Smith wrote many of their hit songs including “Live it Up”
which peaked at No. 2 on the Australian singles chart
Smith had a solo music career, had worked with other bands and was also an artist and television personality.
Born Andrew McArthur Smith in Sydney, Australia, he later attended North Sydney Boys High. Showing an interest in art he moved on to the East Sydney Technical College (now known as the National Art School) in Darlinghurst in the mid-1970s while also holding down a part-time job as a bottle shop attendant. At college he met fellow students, Martin Murphy, Chris O’Doherty, David Twohill and Steve Coburn, whose band, Mental As Anything, had been playing art school parties and dances since May 1976
While playing harmonica in another band at the time, Smith started appearing on stage with Mental As Anything from around December.[
He was eventually cajoled by fellow Mental As Anything members to learn keyboards on an old wedding reception organ to fill in their sound and he quit his other band
Solo and side projects
In 1982, Smith played with Twohill in a group called the Space Shuttle Ramblers that recorded an EP, however the tapes were destroyed in a studio flood prior to release. In 1992, during the Mental As Anything sabbatical he formed a side group called Greedy’s on the Loose that played gigs and recorded however no product was released. In 1996 he recorded a solo album, Love Harmonica, for TWA at his home studio. This led to live work with a band dubbed Greedy’s People and the re-recording in full band mode and subsequent re-release of the album. This new version of the album, also on TWA, was retitled Greedy’s People and included a bonus recording of the Carpenters’ “Close to You”. Rock historian Ian McFarlane described Love Harmonica as an album of “easy-listening love songs that featured latin, pop and jazz rhythms with lush harmonica as the lead instrument.
On 3 December 2019 it was announced, via the band’s website, that Smith had died:
“It is with an incredibly heavy heart to announce that one of the founding members of Mental As Anything, Andrew Greedy Smith passed away last night from a heart attack. Greedy, the only remaining member of the group was currently on a national tour. Our grief and confusion at this time are little compared to what Andrew’s family will be feeling – our hearts and prayers go out to them. Andrew is survived by his son Harvey, fiancée Fiona Docker and brother Stuart.”
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