Sandy Andina - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I'm a singer-songwriter-humorist, performing solo and with my bands SASS! (w/Susan Urban) and Andina & Rich (w/singing, yodeling cowboy comedian Stephen Lee Rich). I play acoustic guitar (6 and 12-string), mountain dulcimer, electric bass, autoharp and 5-string frailing banjo. I'm based in Chicago, as is SASS!, and Andina & Rich are based in Madison, WI. We all tour all over the upper Midwest and beyond, and appear live on radio--perhaps we'll be in your neck of the woods! check out http://www.sandyandina.com http://www.sass-music.com http://www.andinarich.com. Find us on MySpace too: www.myspace.com/sassandthesasstrioSASS! is original classic folk--funny, serious, spiritual and even spooky at times. It features tight harmonies and multi-instrumentals (and occasionally we add Kate Early for lush three-part harmony and unusual and tasteful percussion). We've been a duo since June 2004. Our debut CD (13 songs, a full hour!) "SASS! Album One" (BWC Records) is available on CDBaby, eFolkMusic.com, iTunes and Rhapsody--as well as in folk-oriented brick-and-mortar music stores around Chicagoland. It's already gotten airplay several times on WFMT's "The Midnight Special" as well as on Radio Crystal Blue and various folk radio shows on the air and Internet. As the SASS! Trio, we officially showcased at the annual Folk Alliance conference in Memphis in 2007, and are going into the studio to record our trio EP.Andina & Rich, together off and on since 1981, is eclectic folk/comedy/country/show tunes--you name it. Stephen is Madison's Yodeling Cowboy Comedian, and we take full advantage of that. Our debut CD, "Because We Can" (Travenia Records, 2006) has been released to great reviews and has already received play on "The Midnight Special," Dr. Demento (my version of the title tune is also on his "Basement Tapes 13" CD), Wisconsin Public Radio, and even Camp Casey in Crawford, TX. The title tune got a 2006 JustPlainFolks Award nomination for Best Novelty Song.And I often perform solo as well. My CD "Ghosts and Angels" (Essay Records, 2001) has received and still receives worldwide air-and-Internet-play; due to my years as a rock band bassist, I also add thoughtfully-chosen rock and other covers to my solo repertoire which is mostly originals. I'm currently recording my followup CD, due out sometime in 2007.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 5/30/2005
Band Website: sandyandina.com
Band Members: SASS!--SANDY ANDINA (vocals, guitar, mt. dulcimer, bass, autoharp); SUSAN URBAN (vocals, guitar, 6-string banjo, hand percussion) ANDINA & RICH--SANDY ANDINA (vocals, guitar, mt. dulcimer); STEPHEN LEE RICH (vocals, guitar)
Influences: Joni Mitchell, Richard Rogers, Lou & Peter Berryman, Tom Paxton, Steve Goodman, Tom Lehrer, Warren Zevon, Stan Rogers, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Richard Thompson, Anne Hills, Cindy Mangsen
Sounds Like: ME! Seriously, I've been told I am the bastard child of a wild three-way between Joni Mitchell, Steve Goodman and Jerry Seinfeld; and that my voice sounds like (variously) Joan Baez, Grace Slick, Judy Collins, Mimi Farina, Peggy Seeger, Keeley Smith, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, and Blossom Dearie. You'll love SASS! if you like Four Bitchin' Babes, the Chenille Sisters, Fink & Marxer, Lou & Peter Berryman and Hot Soup. Those who love ANDINA & RICH also tend to like the Berrymans, Reilly & Maloney and Small Potatoes.
Record Label: Essay (Sandy), Travenia(Andina & Rich), BWC(SASS!)
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

its been a long, long time--and its Moving Day

Haven't posted here in awhile--have been quite busy with life changes (eldercare, etc.), volunteering, music, and biting my fingernails to the quick over the election--hopefully, in a couple of days I...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:11:00 PST

4 Fs (and a "ph")......

....which stands for "FARM, family, flu, phlegm, and Folk Alliance." The past six and a half months have been a roller-coaster of joys, concerns, friendships, networking, and the challenges of illne...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:59:00 PST

What is the sound of one heart sinking?

I am watching tonight's "VOTR (VT, OH, TX, RI) Tuesday" primary election coverage and I am getting an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach--a stomach is meant to hold many foods and beverages, but n...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:33:00 PST

Vegas behind me, FARM in front of me, Stuck in the middle of now

It was a major disappointment to have to miss Fox Valley Folk Festival this year--and it was no consolation that there WAS no festival due to the complete flooding of Island Park. But I did have the d...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:48:00 PST

What a week!

Less than an hour after I posted the previous blog, my son Gordy informed me that the attic ceiling had caved in. Well, we've had 20 years of assorted ceiling drips due to a botched roofing job, and b...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Sat, 01 Sep 2007 10:53:00 PST

when it rains....

......it pours, basements flood, roofs leak and concerts get canceled. C'est la vie. (All together now: "La vie!")The weekend got off to a most inauspicious start: Fri. morning I bent over to put a ...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:11:00 PST

Back Home Again....for now

I am writing this early on a Tuesday morning. Not only I but my laptop and (later today) my espresso machine are home again after absences of varying length. The laptop had to have a brain transplant-...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:39:00 PST

On Criticism and Taste

I have been on this earth now for over half a century, been a producer of art (music) for over forty years and a consumer of it ever since I was old enough to turn on a TV or radio or listen to a reco...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:55:00 PST

How should we be judged as artists?

On a musicians' forum recently, there was a long and heated thread about being an artist vs. being an entertainer. I took and still take the position that for a performing songwriter, it is necessary...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:46:00 PST

ups & downs, spread it around

UPS: First, the good stuff: just got back from the Hiawatha Folk Festival, where SASS! did three workshops: Songwriting (which we shared with, inter alia, Ellis Paul and the Milroys), Stump the Band...
Posted by Sandy Andina on Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:28:00 PST