Riverside homeless man gives up street life, street music
Bluitt Williams Andrews taps his foot and tightens his lips.
His fretting hand moves up and down the neck of his black and white Fender Squier Stratocaster.
Andrews, who goes by his stage name Andrew Blue, rises from his chair for a bluesy, improvised riff intertwined with a saxophone for "The Busy Woman's Blues."
It's the last practice for the Riverside City College Laboratory Jazz Ensemble before today's performance at the school's jazz festival.
Fellow student guitarist Matthew Humphrey gives him a fist bump.
"Andrew, that's better. A lot more of you in there," says director James Rocillo.
This moment marks a big step forward for Andrews, 56, who has been homeless most of the past eight years.
He had been sleeping near a flower shop on Mary Street when Riverside's Homeless Outreach Team persuaded him to move indoors. He now lives in a two-room apartment and signed up to take the laboratory jazz ensemble class.
Source
His fretting hand moves up and down the neck of his black and white Fender Squier Stratocaster.
Andrews, who goes by his stage name Andrew Blue, rises from his chair for a bluesy, improvised riff intertwined with a saxophone for "The Busy Woman's Blues."
It's the last practice for the Riverside City College Laboratory Jazz Ensemble before today's performance at the school's jazz festival.
Fellow student guitarist Matthew Humphrey gives him a fist bump.
"Andrew, that's better. A lot more of you in there," says director James Rocillo.
This moment marks a big step forward for Andrews, 56, who has been homeless most of the past eight years.
He had been sleeping near a flower shop on Mary Street when Riverside's Homeless Outreach Team persuaded him to move indoors. He now lives in a two-room apartment and signed up to take the laboratory jazz ensemble class.
Source
