Andy Mitchell
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Andy Mitchell

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"Lockport musician wins acclaim in national songwriting contest"

If you listen closely to the songs of Andrew Mitchell, you might just hear musical echoes from his father and grandfather.

Mitchell, a Lockport songwriter who recently received an honorable mention in a national online music competition, credits his gifts to his paternal bloodlines. His grandfather was a jazz bass player in Lewiston in the ’40s, and his father was a guitar player and songwriter whose own music was infused by the Vietnam War.

“My dad was huge into freedom rock in the ’70s,” he said. “He would listen to James Taylor and Jim Croce and even Zeppelin and Hendrix, all the big guitar gods, all the big songwriters.”

“I fell in love with music and songwriting.” he added.

Two of Mitchell’s songs, “Disintegrate,” and “Break the Fall,” were selected as finalists in the USA Songwriting Competition (www.songwriting.net) that is sponsored in part by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and the Hal Leonard Corp., one of the largest publishers of sheet music in the world. “Disintegrate” also received an honorable mention in the competition. Mitchell wrote “Disintegrate” for his band Sixpin, a hard rock, metal band “with a ’90s grunge influence.”

The band, which is headlining March 13 at the Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo, has been through a lot of changes the past few years, because, as Mitchell explains, “a band is an ever-evolving recipe ... and sometimes you have to tweak the ingredients. The group of guys we have right now are amazing.”

“Disintegrate,” on the 2007 Sixpin album “Break the Fall,” with its hard rock/alternative influence, was finished in an recording studio improvisation when Mitchell couldn’t find the right words to complete the lyrics.

The song, which is about time running out and people waiting, had been through many changes . Mitchell believes that the organic way it was completed helped it gain attention. “It was very natural,” he said of the recording process. “I think that’s why is succeeded so well.”

Mitchell also has an acoustic album coming out in June, tentatively titled “When You Fall,” and produced by Paved Earth Music, an independent publisher in New York City.

That music, which was inspired by his father’s death in 2007, is more of a songwriter’s showcase, introspective, political and romantic. His song “Break the Fall,” which was also a finalist in the competition, is featured on that album and tells a story about a frustrating relationship where one person just won’t take the outstretched hand of another.

His father’s influence is woven throughout the acoustic album, Mitchell said, “and I’m hoping he would have dug it.”

As for the acclaim from the national competition he said, “It feels really good to get acknowledged, but it’s a labor of love. If something cool comes out of it, that’s great.”

“My short-term goal is to keep writing and recording, putting stuff out and hoping people like it,” he added.

In the meantime, he’s watching over the next generation of musicians in his family, currently embodied in his 3-year-old daughter, Lana, who is pretty attached right now to her drum set.

“She has a lot of creativity in her that’s pretty exciting for me ... she sings all day long,” he said, “I love watching that.” - Niagara Gazette


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Still working on that hot first release.

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Bio

A Boy and His Airplane is the indie/folk brainchild of songwriter Andrew Mitchell. Incorporating vintage electric guitar tones, melodic acoustic guitar arrangements and sincere vocals, Andrew creates a sound that speaks to the listener and sheds light onto his personal experience, drawing his audience into his world.

Born in a small town outside of Buffalo, NY, Andy started playing music at a young age to pass time and hang out with friends. Fast forward 13 years later and you get A Boy and His Airplane, a romance story about a kid that never quite grew up and his guitar, his airplane that took him to all the places he ever wanted to go. Free and honest, A Boy and His Airplane looks back over his life; the loss of a father, the birth of a child, and his existance in a world that never seems to stay the same for too long.