Pat McAndrew: Guitar player's passion was for blues, hoops, his students

"It touched something in his soul," said his son, Wes McAndrew. "My dad was a really deep guy, and he kept everything deep inside of him."

McAndrew was unassuming and introspective, until, that is, he wrapped his arms around Ethyl and hugged her tight to his chest.

"The way he would hold that guitar, it always seemed to me he was picking it up and hugging it, making love to it. He was always so passionate" about his Gibson and about his music, said Cathy Warner.

Warner owns Boondocks Lounge, 3306 N. First Ave., where those who knew McAndrew will gather at 5 p.m. Sunday for a musical memorial in honor of the guitarist and high school teacher who died from a heart attack Dec. 28. He was 61.

McAndrew was born in Cincinnati on the cusp of a new post-World War II style of electric blues that quickly gained popularity in big cities, including St. Louis, and influenced mainstream pop music. McAndrew had a keen interest in music and taught himself, for the most part, how to play the guitar. After his family moved to Tucson in 1958, McAndrew met another budding musician, Brooks Keenan. Their friendship and musical collaborations continued for nearly 50 years.

The two met in junior high. McAndrew was putting together a rock combo and asked Brooks to join him on keyboards. The two friends, and a few other classmates, met on and off for informal jam sessions. In college, McAndrew and Brooks formed their first touring band, Garfield Smelter, named for a mining landmark that caught their attention on a road trip. The Smelter boys stayed together for three years, playing gigs on the road during the summer and at local venues during the school year. They opened for big-name recording artists, including the Doors, the Animals, Buffalo Springfield and the Yardbirds.

In the early 1970s, after Garfield Smelter broke up, McAndrew joined the Dusty Chaps, a group that was among the pioneers of country rock.

The band was signed by Capitol Records and produced some honky-tonk albums, but after a few years on the road, they broke up.

McAndrew returned to Southern Arizona to raise a family and take up teaching, having earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education and political science from the University of Arizona.

McAndrew put the same energy into teaching that he gave to sports when he was a standout athlete as a teen. (In 2003 the former all-state basketball guard was inducted into the Flowing Wells High School Sports Hall of Fame.)

Jerry Gerovac played basketball with McAndrew in high school.

"Pat was by far the most driven athlete I've ever known. He was awesome in the clutch. A lot of great athletes had this ability, but Pat had it unlike anybody else," Gerovac said.

Dan Huff, a cousin of Keenan's, attended Amphitheater High School and watched McAndrew play when the two schools met on the hardwood.

"I ended up coaching basketball, and in 27 years I still haven't seen a shooter who's better," Huff said.

"He pushed himself for excellence in whatever the endeavor . . . his level of excellence just astounded me," Huff said. "He accomplished things in teaching that most people don't, and he was an outstanding musician."

During his career in education, McAndrew won national awards for his achievements in the classroom, but he never bragged and rarely spoke about his early athletic prowess or his musical expertise. After joining the faculty of University High School in the early 1990s, he challenged his students by raising the bar for achievement and leading teams to state and national wins in academic decathlons and mock trial competitions.

McAndrew was able to connect with his students, and he encouraged them to be freethinkers, said his son.

Danny Meza, a first-year teacher in New York, was one of McAndrew's students.

"I was thinking about him this whole semester while I'm planning my lessons," Meza said. "The way he enlightened our class, he got us to think critically."

All through his teaching career, McAndrew continued jamming with other musicians and playing gigs around town. In the early '80s, McAndrew and Keenan joined George Howard to form the Statesboro Blues Band.

"He was into the older-style blues, and that's how we kind of connected," Howard said. "To this day, I carry Pat's philosophy with me: Know your music, study it and enjoy it."

McAndrew's skillful musicianship was recognized last year, when he and other musicians were inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum.

Clay Brown, who plays saxophone and sings with the Statesboro band, said it was "the original blues band in this town that opened the doors for all the rest of the musicians to play that style here."

In a 2006 interview on the KXCI radio show "Jonathan Holden's Rhythm and Roots," McAndrew said: "Statesboro became the blues entity in Tucson, and we found wonderful support from many of the people we admired. We opened for Robert Cray. We backed up Otis Rush. We opened Piedmont Brown, toured with Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite. . . .

"Bo Diddley is the best bandleader I've ever worked with," McAndrew said. "We got on the stage and he had this weird cigar-box guitar and we had some conversations about that. I think Bo Diddley was the best of the old guys."

McAndrew was an old-school musician himself, Statesboro band member Clay Brown said.

"He had a great love for soulful people who play blues. The ones he really liked hit you where you lived," Brown said.

Life Stories

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories.