His first feature film as a director was the 1978 semi-biographical picture "Stony Island". The film had a theatrical release in 1978 and was eventually released on DVD on April 24, 2012. "Stony Island" centered on young musicians forming a band in their impoverished south side neighborhood. The film stars veteran musicians like saxophone player Gene Barge and soul singer Ronnie Barron as well as relative newcomers like Dennis Franz and Edward "Stony" Robinson. Roger Ebert describes the movie in a 2012 article, "The energy, I gather, came in large part from the performers themselves. The movie is more or less based on fact; the director and co-writer, Andy Davis, has a brother who was the last white kid on the block down on Stony Island, and actually was involved in a band something like the one in the movie."