OUR STORY
Andrew Crawford grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, the youngest of three boys. His father was a non-practicing, ordained Methodist minister who went into the investment business while his mother became an entrepreneur, building a successful children's clothing company in the basement of their suburban home.
He spent his childhood exploring the woods behind his house, playing sports with his brothers, and watching movies like the Blues Brothers and Smokey and the Bandit over and over on early cable.
Andrew's first attempt at music came when he learned a few guitar chords from an Eagles song book, ironic now because he currently employs a "no Eagles " policy in his workshop.
As a teenager, Andrew discovered a deep love of sculpture and pursued drawing, woodworking and figure modeling. He even tried to carve a hand out of marble but, sadly, never finished.
Andrew spent most of high school at a boarding school in New England, where he polished his skills as a place kicker on the football team, a passionate photographer, and a highly functioning procrastinator.
He went on to the Rhode Island School of Design to study sculpture, and while there cultivated his passion for metal, as well as his ongoing, unrelenting love of music. He worked tirelessly in the foundry by day and practiced with his band, Idle Hands, at night.
As a side note, Idle Hands broke up due to a bizarre love triangle situation, somewhat like the one that plagued Fleetwood Mac, which is ironic, because he currently employs a "no Fleetwood Mac” policy in his workshop.
After graduating from RISD, Andrew returned to Atlanta to start the Andrew T Crawford Ironworks. The studio/workshop was to become the realization of his vision, inspiration and execution of sculpture, decorative ironwork and industrial fabrication. After more than 20 years, the workshop has become renowned for producing some of the finest ironwork and most beautifully crafted objects in the Southeast and beyond.
Artistically crafted gates and railings, refined fountains and furnishings, and sophisticated sculptures grace the grounds, homes, public projects and institutions of Crawford's clientele.
The Silver Star Banjo Company is Andrew’s latest side project. After purchasing a pre-war Gibson banjo, he became obsessed with the science, the craft and the history of the banjo.
In keeping with his lifelong strategy of improving things instead of actually inventing them in the first place, Crawford invented the challenge of creating an all metal, resonator-style banjo, based on the Gibson Mastertone banjo and borrowing technology from Dobro and National guitars, he set out to create an innovative instrument with little-to-no knowledge of the craft.
Educating himself on YouTube, he ripped apart his Korean banjo, inserted a grocery store pie tin, and restrung it to find that it made almost no noise at all.
The result was the Silver Star.
The Silver Star Banjos are fabricated by hand in our Atlanta workshop. Each one is treated as a unique and personal project. Anything that cannot be fabricated in the workshop is purchased from reputable and quality manufacturers. Andrew found that using mediocre or less than adequate parts actually cheapened the high-quality parts that they were paired with. Which is relevant, because he currently employs a "no Sammy Hagar" policy in his studio. He continued to work on the concept.
Outside of work, Crawford keeps a full and exciting schedule. At age 42, he took on scuba diving, large-scale urban agriculture, tree farming, whale shark diving at the Georgia Aquarium, and traveling the world in pursuit of his true love, opera. Which is ironic, since his co-workers have a “no opera” policy in the shop.
