Andrew Sa “American Rough”

Queer Country Crooner Andrew Sa Makes Confident and Deeply Affecting Debut with 'American Rough' (ALBUM REVIEW) - Glide Magazine

Thanks to steady gigging around his adopted hometown of Chicago, paired with a beautiful, hypnotic voice, Andrew Sa has been dubbed Chicago’s premier queer country crooner. His debut, American Rough, may just make that title national. With a voice that seems to channel Roy Orbison, you can also hear traces of everyone from Chris Isaak to the late Raul Malo in Sa’s swooning vocals. American Rough is a romantic’s record, delivering songs about fal…

ALBUM REVIEW: Andrew Sa Bares His Heart and Soul on Unflinching Debut, ‘American Rough’

From the start of Andrew Sa’s American Rough, it’s impossible not to be pulled in. With the album’s opening number and title track, a curtain of balmy keys, sinewy bass, and throbbing horns parts to reveal an apparition: “He’s mean handsome / Can’t hardly be decent together / He’s American rough / Eatin’ the heart out of this room…”This enticing figure, magnificently sculpted from Sa’s Orbisonian croon in just a minute and a half, lingers like a…

Andrew Sa “American Rough”

The remarkable debut of a 21st-century crooner. Where do crooners come from? Surely this thought must have kept you awake in the late hours, when time stands still and there’s nothing to do but face the big questions in life. If we were to make a case study of Andrew Sa, nothing would seem strange about a childhood riding around in a Ford F150 for his mother’s travelling karaoke business. It would also only be natural for names like Roy Orbison …