The Longfellow Street Music Collective is a group of like-minded musicians who get together to make music and have fun. Centered around the original music of Mallory McKendry and Trey Andrews, the group mixes diverse influences into a gumbo of different but compatible musical styles. Each musician brings a flavor to the group, adding influences from the worlds of jazz, blues, folk, rock, country, honkytonk, and big-band swing.
Members
Mallory McKendry
vocals, acoustic guitar, ukelele & bass guitar
Trey Andrews
vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, electric bass and Ergo electric upright bass, ukelele, piano, synthesizers & found sound
Craig Lundgren
tenor & alto saxophone
Ryan Collins
electric & acoustic guitar, vocals
Donna Irwin
electric guitar, backing vocals
Andrew “Irwin” Irwin
tenor saxophone & flute
Ross Hartig
drums
Russell Scarborough
drums
Talia Green
backing vocals
Arvid Smith
electric & acoustic guitars, Dobro, Mellobar steel guitar,
sitar, tanpura & dilruba - visit Arvid’s website
Cody Walker, Jr
drums, acoustic guitar & vocals
Longfellow Street – The Jacksonville Years
While performing in the Jacksonville area, Longfellow Street shared the fun on stage with many local and national bands, including The Wandas, Dash Rip Rock & Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. We headlined the Riverside Arts Market’s main stage. We played a sold-out show at the Limelight Theater with Amy Hendrickson & The Prime Directive, the first annual Glass Camels Festival at the lovely Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park – and we played a lot of bar gigs! Meanwhile we also had a blast with each other in Trey’s recording studio.
History
When Trey and Mallory met through a mutual musical acquaintance in 2007, they immediately found something that each had been looking for – a friend and musical partner, someone with a complementary but different musical style, each able to help the other reach for more than they’d been able to achieve alone. They began rehearsing and recording as an acoustic duo. When Cody Walker Jr called Trey and asked if he was working on a new musical project, and whether he needed a drummer, Trey’s first response was that yes, he was working on a new project, but that no, it was an acoustic duo and they weren’t really looking for a drummer. However! The more Mallory and Trey worked together, the more they realized that there was an energy here, something that could be more than just an acoustic duo – so they called Cody back. The first time Cody sat in on drums, that energy was obvious, and they began rehearsing as a trio with Trey on bass.
When they took their fledgling set of Trey and Mallory’s songs out to the long-standing Wednesday night open jam at Monty’s in Jacksonville, local guitar legend Arvid Smith asked to sit in on the last song of the set. Noting that he was carrying a Dobro, almost certainly tuned to open G, Trey said to Arvid “Well, sure, glad to have you… but this is kind of a weird song, odd changes… a jazzy blues thing… and it’s in C-sharp minor.” “So?” was Arvid’s response. Arvid SMOKED that song. After the set was done, Mallory and Trey quickly convened and agreed to ask Arvid if he’d like to come to practice next Wednesday. He was agreeable – and while he was never officially asked to join the band, any kind of formal invitation soon became academic – Trey and Mallory have had the pleasure of playing with him ever since.
With Arvid playing electric & acoustic guitar, Dobro and Mellobar steel guitar, Longfellow Street was now a rockin’ alt-country band, playing around Jacksonville. Soon they attracted the attention of local indie favorite singer-songwriter Shawn Lightfoot, and became an eclectic five-piece. While they had difficulty classifying themselves as country, rock, honky-tonk or indie, they had a lot of fun playing Shawn’s, Mallory’s and Trey’s songs.
Longfellow Street played the local scene in Jacksonville for two years, enjoying every minute of it, before Mallory was called away to the Navy Band in Norfolk, VA. Trey, Shawn, Cody and Arvid played around the Jacksonville area for a couple of years as The 1911s, with Mallory sitting in whenever she was in town. Curiously enough, this was when Trey and Mallory began to write music together. While in Longfellow Street there was plenty of previous material from the band’s three songwriters. But these songs were almost all written before the formation of the band, and it was time for something new. The songs that Trey and Mallory began writing together had more of a sassy, jazzy feel and moved their music away from their country, folk & rock roots. They began to record with horn players, traditional Indian instruments and sampled bits of found sound.
In 2011 Trey followed Mallory to Norfolk. Before long the two began playing with a loose confederation of local musicians and Longfellow Street was reborn as The Longfellow Street Music Collective. Mallory and Trey continue to write new music and explore the possibilities that our new musical friends provide, while staying in touch and involved with the musicians who have helped to make this so much fun for us all along.