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A BiTS INTERVIEw: andy cohen

Andy Cohen is a finger style guitarist who was hugely influenced as a

teenager, by the blues/gospel legend Rev Gary Davis and has devoted his
musical life to the study and performance of pre-WWII traditional blues
and folk music. Memphis-based, he is a virtuoso finger-style guitarist and

musicologist known as a "walking, talking folk-blues-roots music
encyclopaedia".

He is a key preservationist of the Piedmont blues tradition and has spent
over 50 years touring, playing pre-WWII acoustic blues, ragtime, and

gospel. He has made dozens of albums some of which may be found at
https://www.andycohenmusic.com/albums/

Recently he released (with Eleanor Ellis and William Lee Ellis) “Whistlin’
Past The Graveyard” a 21-track tour-de-force of old-time blues, gospel,
ballads, ragtime, and country song.

Ian McKenzie asked him about his life and the album.

BiTS: Andy, 'I’d like to know how you
got into this wonderful music in the
first place and then how you managed

to meet and sometimes assist so many
great musicians.'

AC: A bit of a long story, but the nub of
it is that my pop was a lefty labour
lawyer who stood up to Management,

McCarthy and in general the
conservative politics of his day. He
loved classical music, opera, Broadway
shows, trad Jazz and any kind of music

that came from the lower classes that
he'd come from.

I took to the Dixieland and the folk
music, grew up playing rags on the

piano and left the classics and the
operas alone, along with the Rock and
Roll that was supposed to be mother's
milk to my generation. I liked the old
stuff better and thought that Rock was

simplistic in form and content. I'm still
not fond of any of that other stuff but I
understand it better now.