Remembering Andrew J. “Andy” Stern
Celebrating the Journey of a Man Who Walked Between Two Worlds
🌳 FOR ANDY
I’ve been trying to find the right way to share something about my dear friend Andy Stern. Not because I don’t have the words. In a strange and wonderful way, I had already written many of them.
While writing FROM THE VAULT II: The Lost Chords and Stories, Andy naturally found his way into the pages, not as a single chapter, but woven throughout many of the stories and memories that shaped my life and career.
Long before I could have imagined that those words might someday become part of a remembrance, I was fortunate enough to share many of them with Andy while he was still here. And today, that means more to me than I can possibly say.
And one of the gifts I will treasure most is that Andy actually had the opportunity to read the book.
His response caught me completely by surprise. His enthusiasm was immediate, intense and so genuinely heartfelt that I remember thinking afterward that I wasn’t sure I had ever inspired him quite like that before.
So I did something that those who know me well might appreciate. I mostly kept quiet. I encouraged him, listened, and let Andy have the floor.
I am so grateful that I did.
Because now I get to carry his words with me, too.
Andy was far more than a business associate, manager, consultant or advisor.
He was family.
The brother I never had.
He believed in me. He gave me freedom. He shared an enormous amount of knowledge with me, but never tried to make me into something I wasn’t.
And somehow, two people who came from very different worlds understood one another remarkably well.
Andy could move comfortably through rooms filled with powerful people, major corporations, artists, attorneys, executives and dealmakers. He understood that world because he had lived it. I came from another direction. Mine was the studio, the songs, the musicians, the ideas, following some instinct that often made perfect sense to me long before I could explain it to anyone else.
Andy never asked me to become more like him. He helped make it possible for me to become more like myself.
That may be one of the greatest gifts one human being can give another.
Over the years, the titles changed: manager, advisor, consultant, friend. But none of them ever really described what Andy became in my life.
He was someone I could call and someone I could trust. Someone who could tell me something I might not particularly want to hear and somehow make me grateful that he had said it. Someone who understood that protecting the person sometimes mattered more than protecting the deal. And someone whose belief in me occasionally arrived before my own.
As I spent this past year revisiting so many of the people, songs, relationships and unexpected turns that became FROM THE VAULT II, I began to understand something I hadn’t consciously set out to do.
I was celebrating Andy, too.
He was there. Not confined to one chapter or one story, because that isn’t how he existed in my life.
He was woven through it.
And perhaps that is why, after losing him, I found myself wanting to do something other than simply mourn his passing.
I wanted to say thank you.
Thank you for believing, for listening, for knowing when to advise me and when to simply let me find my own way. Thank you for sharing part of your world with me while allowing me to remain completely at home in mine.
And thank you for being my friend.
I have always believed that the people who become part of our lives leave something behind in us. Andy certainly did.
So while I will miss him terribly, I don’t want my final thoughts here to be about what has been lost.
I want them to be about what remains.
The knowledge, the stories, the laughter, the lessons, the belief, and the extraordinary privilege of having shared part of this journey with a man I loved and respected so deeply.
Andy helped me believe in a great many things over the years.
And somehow, even now, he has given me a little more faith in my tomorrows.
Every New Story Deepens Its Roots. 🌳
Andy Stern.
My friend. My brother.
Thank you for walking between those two worlds with me.
Andrew J. “Andy” Stern
Friend, mentor, and forever part of the Family Tree.
CONTACT
Jeff Silverman
Mount Juliet, TN 37121
Phone: (615) 681 4061
011 + 1 + 615 681 4061 (International)
Toll free calling available
By Appointment Only
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