The Third Story Podcast With Leo Sidran

Music is not only a form of expression, it’s also a way of traveling. It’s astounding how many people’s lives have been completely transformed by their relationship with music - and sometimes the simplest experiences we have as kids can profoundly alter the course of everything that follows.  A few seemingly unrelated events during Andy Narell’s early childhood in New York helped to lay out a path for him to follow, and he’s still following it today. They included Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare”, a rise in gang violence in Harlem in the 1960s, and the innovations of a musical instrument maker from Trinidad named Ellie Mannette. Andy Narell is known as one of the most celebrated - if not the most celebrated steel - drummers in the world. Throughout a five plus decade career, he has contributed to both the development of steel drum music, and to the development of the drums themselves.  Andy has appeared on hundreds of records and film scores, he’s been the subject of two documentary films himself, made nearly 20