“The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo…When you want genuine music — music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth’s pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,– when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!” ~ Mark Twain 

If his love of the banjo is any indication, Andy is a man who likes genuine music. A television news producer, writer, swimmer, and musician, he’s been playing the guitar since high school. About 10  years ago, he picked up a banjo and never looked back. More recently, Andy and friend Colin formed a new duo, BanJovi, performing a unique mashup of traditional Appalachian and African banjo music.

Like Twain, Andy believes his banjo has medicinal benefits. After a hectic work day covering state and national politics, his Bart Reiter open back banjo is a welcome distraction.

Like Twain, some people attest that Andy’s music has the same purgative, cathartic effect as Brandreth’s Pills, but individual results vary.

This is the latest installment in my “True Colors in Black and White” series, in which I strive to create distinctive portraits that showcase each subject’s unique personality, profession, or pastime.