About Me
Since permanently leaving his corporate environmental engineering career in 1996, the award-winning folk and Americana artist’s musical journey has traced nearly half a million miles of blue highways nationwide, and earned him a wealth of critical acclaim and enthusiastic fans for his captivating performances and five CDs on the independent Falling Mountain Music label. The Shenandoah Valley-based performer often shares his talents for worthy causes such as recent benefit performances for a community radio station in Massachusetts an at-risk youth mentoring program in California a food bank in suburban Seattle and for the Sierra Club’s “”Inner City Outings”” program in several cities. Andrew’s 2008 CD Something Worth Standing For is a coherent and compelling musical portrait of contemporary America heavily inspired by his recent foray into fatherhood. Spanning haunting blues feisty anthems rustic folk and a bit of swing while drawing inspiration from music legends like The Carter Family Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie paints many colors with his supple tenor and acoustic and electric guitars. Preferring to till the common ground in American ideals instilled during childhood instead of the vehement ideological warfare dominant in the modern media he has taken on many polarizing subjects in a way that transcends popular political labels. Whether solo or with his band Beyond Borders the foundation is always McKnight's stellar songcraft and captivating storytelling. His previous CD of the same name was a 2005 Americana Album of the Year Finalist in the Independent Music Awards and includes "Good Things Matter" Winner of the Great American Song Contest (Acoustic/Folk). His songwriting also encompasses his passion for community and causes such as preserving American landscapes and heritage like the haunting Civil War ballad "The Road to Appomattox" and "Company Town" which opens the acclaimed CD Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining. Those passions and the thoughtful ways he expresses them have drawn many fans who sustain his independent career. In the early 90s Andrew grasped the power of the internet to grow and connect with a loyal listenership and his career has blossomed largely through their "efangelism" instead of the traditional elements of the music business. Many friends and fans host concerts in their homes for 30 to 50 listeners venues Andrew refers to as “safe houses on the folk underground railroad”. In addition to those house concerts and several performances at the Kennedy Center his musical resume includes a wealth of small theaters music festivals and some of the nation's premiere intimate listening rooms. Highlights include the Mountain Stage NewSong Festival Rocky Mountain South Florida and Boston Folk Festivals Chattanooga Riverbend Festival and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. His music is heard on hundreds of broadcast and internet radio shows worldwide including National Public Radio affiliates XM Satellite and the nationally syndicated "River City Folk" and "The Midnight Special". He is a frequent guest musical presenter at Unitarian church services across the U.S.”