Andrew Anka
New York, New York
Andrew Anka received his first guitar at the age of 9, and the first song he taught himself to play was a folk song, Red River Valley. His musical journey was underway. Musical influences are The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and jazz guitarist Joe Pass. It brought him to the folk circuit in Greenwich Village in the late 1960s, playing café to café, testing out his original material.
While he later took a break from performing to become a New York City public school teacher as a reading teacher and music teacher, he continued writing his own music all throughout. Now, retired from the school system, he found more time to write and study guitar again.
Eventually, he connected with a circle of musicians and began to collaborate with a singer/songwriter and producer Justin Tracy.
As clichéd as it sounds, most events of Andrew’s life provide the source of his material. The creative process begins from a word, sentence, a chord, a thought.
He likes to write in various genres and to reflect various moods, from the upbeat country song Whiskey Night, the war protest song In The End and the infectious pop Sometime I Fall.
When most of the city is asleep, Andrew is busy writing a new song!
-Amy Zimmer