Andy Offutt Irwin

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Andy Offutt Irwin
Background information
Born	1957
Origin	Covington, Georgia  United States
Occupation(s)	Storyteller, arts educator, singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	Guitar, percussion
Years active	1984—present
Website	AndyIrwin.com

Andy Offutt Irwin (born 1957) is an American storyteller, arts educator, and singer-songwriter. Irwin began his career in an improvisational comedy troupe but after five years he shifted to performing as a singer-songwriter, touring the Southeast for about six years. In the mid-1990s, he branched into performances for children and since then has appeared in hundreds of schools (from preschools to colleges) and countless public libraries.

Irwin continued to perform (for adults) as a singer-songwriter who told an occasional story, but in the fall of 2004 he decided to pursue storytelling as a career. He quickly achieved national prominence and now appears regularly in storytelling festivals across the United States. He has thus far released three albums; the first features ten songs and one story, the other two are exclusively storytelling albums. His second album was named the best storytelling album of 2006. Currently, Irwin divides his time between storytelling festivals and children’s performances. Irwin is also featured on a weekly public radio music program as storyteller and host.

Contents 1 Background 2 Storytelling 3 Arts educator 4 Recordings 4.1 Marguerite 4.2 Mouth sounds and imitations 5 Radio 6 Other 7 Personal 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Background

Andy Offutt Irwin is a native of Covington, Georgia,^[1] a small town in the United States' Deep South about 35 miles east of Atlanta. As a child, he always wanted to be a musician,^[2] learning to play drums in elementary school band and adding guitar as a teenager. It was also in his youth that Irwin discovered his talent for imitating different sounds^[3] and the speech of others.^[1] Irwin attended Georgia College & State University where he received a B. S. in Sociology in 1983.^[4] While there, he was named Mess Georgia College.^[5]

Starting in 1985, Irwin spent five years writing, directing and performing shows with the comedy troupe SAK Theatre at Walt Disney World.^[6] Upon returning to Georgia, Irwin began to focus on singing and songwriting, though he always kept comedic elements in his music.^[7] Beginning in 1991, Irwin toured the Southeast^[3] as a singer-songwriter, performing both solo and with his band, an act that he bills as "Andy Offutt Irwin vs. the fingermonsters" (sic).^[8] From 1995 to 2001, Irwin sang humorous songs, played guitar and performed comedy as "Offutt the Minstrel" at the Georgia Renaissance Festival,^[9] and he also performed as "Offutt the Minstrel" at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.^[7]

[edit] Storytelling

A natural storyteller,^[2] Irwin started to incorporate more and more stories into his musical performances. He contemplated becoming a stand-up comedian but rejected the idea because he felt that the days of storytelling comedians, like Bill Cosby, had passed.^[10] A discussion with noted storyteller Carmen Deedy lead to Irwin’s decision to become a professional storyteller^[10] and he began to actively pursue the storytelling circuit in 2004 after the death of his eldest son, Tristan. Irwin quickly achieved national prominence and was a Featured New Voices Storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival in October 2005.^[11]

In 2006, Irwin performed at a number of storytelling festivals including the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and the Hoosier Storytelling Festival. In 2007, Irwin's storytelling schedule includes the Winters Tales Storytelling Festival in Oklahoma, the St. Louis Storytelling Festival in Missouri and the Four Corners Storytelling Festival in New Mexico. In October 2007, he will return to the National Storytelling Festival as a Featured Storyteller.^[12]

Irwin's stories often reflect life in a small Southern town^[2] with recurring themes of growing up and growing old,^[10] the complexities of racial relations during the 1960’s^[13] and the bonds of family.^[2] Irwin has taught storytelling workshops (for adults) in Bozeman, Montana^[14] and Columbia, South Carolina.^[10]

[edit] Arts educator

Irwin is also a natural as a children’s performer, because at heart he is an overgrown kid.^[15] His performances for children can be traced to the summers during college that he worked as a camp counselor.^[1] [It was as a camp counsel that he started using his middle name, “Offutt”, (the maiden name of his paternal grandmother).]

In the mid-1990s he began touring the Southeast as an arts educator and over the years he has performed in hundreds of schools and libraries. In 2000, Irwin was the keynote performer/speaker at the Library of Congress/Viburnum Foundation Conference on Family Literacy.^[16] Outside of the Southeast, he has appeared at LaGuardia High School of Arts & Music and Performing Arts in New York, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts^[16] and at schools in Mesa, Arizona^[12] and Ventura County, California.^[17] Irwin’s work in schools ranges from forty-minute shows where he sings, plays guitar and performs comedy (show titles include Offutt's Environmental Epic, Nouns, Verbs and Other Important Stuff and PROtozoa/ANTIbacterial) to weeklong residences where he leads workshops in songwriting or drama, usually concluding with a performance by the children of their newly-created music or play for their parents.^[18]

[edit] Recordings

Irwin's first album, Banana Seat, (recorded in 1994 and released in 1995 on Echo Lake Records), features Irwin singing and playing guitar on ten songs (nine of his own composition and the jazz standard Kiss to Build a Dream On)^[6] often accompanied by his band, “the fingermonsters” (sic). Banana Seat also includes Irwin telling a story about learning to play drums, a bicycle race and race. Christmas at Southern White Old Lady Hospital, Irwin's second album, (2004, Echo Lake Records), is a collection of stories about his (fictional) Aunt Marguerite who became a medical doctor at the age of eighty^[1] and still enjoys a good practical joke. On November 4, 2006 Christmas at Southern White Old Lady Hospital was awarded Storytelling Album of the Year by Just Plain Folks, a community of over 40,000 music professionals.^{[19] [20]} His third recording, released in 2006, is another collection of stories (most featuring Aunt Marguerite) titled Book Every Saturday for a Funeral. As its title implies, the third album is a bit darker than the second and humorously deals with the topics of loss and grief.^[2]

[edit] Marguerite

Most of the stories on Irwin’s albums revolve around his fictional aunt, Dr. Marguerite Van Camp. Aunt Marguerite founded Southern White Old Ladies Hospital in rural Georgia because (as Irwin explains in Marguerite’s old lady voice) “all our husbands have moved on, and we were tired of the garden club and the bridge club and the ladies club. So Mary Frances and Julia and I all went back to medical school".^[9]

While Aunt Marguerite is fictional, Irwin loosely based the character on his mother^[2] and his maternal grandmother.^[1] The character of Marguerite is one that evolved from a nurse character Irwin created to entertain his mother while she was hospitalized with cancer.^[10]

[edit] Mouth sounds and imitations

Irwin has a unique ability to make an extremely wide variety of sounds with his mouth, whether he is imitating the voices of others, musical instruments, or the sounds found in everyday life.^[21] Utilizing these vocalizations in both storytelling and musical performances, he has been called "a veritable master of sound effects and voices,"^[1] and a "virtual sound factory".^[3]

In storytelling, he is best known for his "old lady characterizations"^[1] as he recounts tales of Marguerite and her friends, giving each a distinct voice that, with just a few words, can convey a great deal about that character’s personality. His storytelling albums showcase a wide range of sound effects as well, ranging from the annoying musical ring of a cell phone to the low bellow of a fog horn. In his musical performances, the instruments he imitates include electric guitar, trumpet, and tuba, leading Irwin to note, "The closest thing I have to a keyboard player is my face".^[3]

Additionally, he is an extraordinary whistler, able to make sounds on both inhalation and exhalation, which allows him to whistle without pausing for several minutes. The Beacon, the student newspaper for the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, recounted a portion of Irwin’s performance: "'Someone ask me if I smoke,' said Irwin. The audience complied. Then he whistled without taking a breath for over a minute. After which he answered with a sly 'No.'".^[21] Ironically, there is a quote by Irwin ("Don’t be afraid to be amazing") that appears on myriad websites([1] [2], [3], [4], [5]) including The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter Issue #178 [6].

[edit] Radio

Irwin serves as host, storyteller, and self-proclaimed "audience trainer" of the Evening Star radio show,^[22] a one-hour program of music and storytelling on Georgia Public Broadcasting. ^[23] The show broadcast monthly from January 2004 through December 2005, then began broadcasting weekly in January 2006^[24] and can be heard on the GPB radio network and via the web on Sunday afternoons at 4 PM EST from January through June.

The Evening Star radio show is recorded live at the Evening Star Music Series, monthly contemporary folk concerts performed at the Sautee Nacoochee Center, which is located in the foothills of Northeast Georgia near Helen. Irwin begins each radio broadcast by performing the show's theme song, then he tells a story and introduces the evening’s musical performer(s).^[22]

[edit] Other

• In 1984-1985, Irwin served as Artist-In-Residence at Georgia College and State University during which he wrote and directed the play Through the Needle's Eye: A Celebration of St. Francis.^[6]
• In 1991, Irwin began working for Oxford College of Emory University where he is currently Artist-In-Residence, occasionally directs plays and in 2001 was recipient of the Sammy Clark Award for Exemplary Teaching and Service.^[16]
• For eight years Irwin directed the annual Cracker Crumble an evening of politically satirical skits put on by the Georgia Press Association for the amusement of (and at the expense of) Georgia politicians and lobbyists.^[25]
• Irwin is a past winner of the Farber Invitational stand-up competition at the Punchline comedy club in Atlanta.^[1]
• One of his songs from Banana Seat, "Clamydomonas (sp?)", (sic) is featured on the website of the International Society of Protozoologists.
• Irwin has written and recorded several songs for public service announcements for the Books Ahoy! Vacation Reading Program for children in Georgia and South Carolina that are available for free download.^[4]
• One of his songs, “Clarice” was recorded live at Eddie's Attic by Shawn Mullins and Matthew Kahler for their album, Jeff’s Last Dance, Volume II.^[26][27]
• A quote by Irwin, “Don’t be afraid to be amazing!” was chosen to be the message of the murals created by artist Susan Guevara for the post-Katrina renovation of the New Orleans Children’s Resource Center branch library. ^[28]

[edit] Personal

In 1992 Irwin and his wife, Kathleen, were expecting twins. One of the twins was stillborn and the other, Tristan, was born profoundly disabled with cerebral palsy characterized by extremely limited motor skills and cognitive abilities. Irwin's song, “You Are My Ka-Pooh,” reflects their experience of loving a severely disabled child.^[21] Miraculously, Tristan lived to the age of eleven, passing away in 2004. In 1999, Irwin's son, Liam, was born. Irwin resides in Covington, Georgia,^[10] about 35 miles east of Atlanta. Irwin is 6 feet 4 inches tall.

[edit] See also

• Storytelling
• Storytelling festival

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Andy Offutt Irwin's official website
• Loyd Artists
• Georgia Public Broadcasting Radio
• Young Audiences Woodruff Arts Center