Andy Aledort-The Warehouse, Amityville, NY

Pat was my best friend in High School.  I remember casually meeting him through a mutual friend when he first transferred to our school. A few days later I ran into him at the grocery store with his mother.  We stood at the checkout registers of Jubilee while my gram and his mom did the shopping and we both quickly learned we both played guitar! That was really the start of our friendship.

More often than not, I would end up at his house to get together and “jam”.  He would show me a few things, mostly rhythm, while he played lead over my chords.  He told me to pick up magazines that had TAB transcriptions of the songs we enjoyed, one of which was Guitar For The Practicing Musician.  That magazine is how I learned the name Andy Aledort! For years, Andy taught me all the great tunes I always wanted to learn to play. Of course, I was never quite as disciplined as I should be to get to a level I wanted to be.  But never the less, I knew the name Andy Aledort.

You can imagine my delight last fall when I learned he was going to be playing at a club nearby!  He and fellow author, Alan Paul were having a book signing of their book, “Texas Flood” with a Q&A followed by a Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute show.  Unfortunately, by the time I had gotten there, the format for the night had changed. I opened to door to the venue and was met by the ticket takers who informed me that they didnt take credit cards. Since they didnt have an ATM, I had to walk a block down the street in the rain to retrieve some cash.  Andy had already started playing! Although I may have missed a couple songs or so, it pretty much turned into an impromptu Stevie request show! Not knowing what songs I missed, really didnt matter. Andy and fellow bandmates were all exceptional musicians, playing hit after hit after hit! I was fortunate not only to meet one of my idols but to see him up close and personal.  Andy and Alan are both talented writers, great musicians and salt of the earth gentlemen! I look forward to another show sometime in the near future!!

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