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cover9_50medium“‘Play the song.’

“A rather sim­ple and innocu­ous lit­tle com­ment, isn’t it?

“Could be some­thing as inno­cent as a request direct­ed at a disc jock­ey or a plea from an impa­tient club own­er to a belea­guered band.

“But no, this time those three words are a nugget of advice from one of the most leg­endary and well-respect­ed musi­cians in the annals of mod­ern music – Mr. Lev­on Helm.

““That’s one of the great­est pieces of advice he gave me. Play the song, don’t use the song for what­ev­er it is you’re try­ing to do … like get­ting up there and show­ing off or show­ing every­body what you know. I remem­ber him telling a gui­tar play­er, ‘There’s a lot of notes, did you real­ly have to play all of them?’” said singer, song-writer, harpist and band­leader Chris O’Leary. “He would say, ‘Play the song. Go up there and if you’re solo­ing, if you’re singing or if you’re play­ing rhythm, for­ward the song. What­ev­er the song may be, sup­port it. That’s a les­son that has car­ried me – among a zil­lion oth­ers that he taught me.””

Read the rest of the inter­view by Ter­ry Mullins in the Decem­ber 10, 2015 issue of Blues Blast Magazine

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Gonna Die Tryin'
Gonna Die Tryin’

“Chris O’Leary has a vocal style that could make a believ­er out of a devout athe­ist and a har­mon­i­ca style that will burn a hole straight through to the deep­est part of your heart.  There’s just some­thing in his deliv­ery that has the lis­ten­er hang­ing on every note and every word.  Sev­en years as a Marine and six years as a mem­ber of Lev­on Helm’s Barn­burn­ers are enough to con­vince the hard­ened skep­tic that this cat has paid his dues.  If that’s not enough, one lis­ten to this disc will dri­ve the point home.  A band as sol­id as the Rock of Gibral­tar back­ing his for­mi­da­ble skills is enough to get the point across that Chris O’Leary is 100% the real deal.  Back­ing him on this album are Chris Vitarel­lo on gui­tar, Andy Stahl and Chris Difrancesco on sax­o­phones, Matt Ray­mond on bass and Jay Devlin on drums.  Add the piano & organ work of Bruce Katz, Vin­nie Nobile on trom­bone, and Willa Pan­vi­ni McCarthy & Lib­by Cabel­lo on back­ground vocals…then add John Mooney as a spe­cial guest on gui­tar, and this tasty treat has the cher­ry on top.  The fact that O’Leary wrote all the music and lyrics for the album makes him all the more impres­sive.  As impres­sive a word­smith as he is a har­mon­i­ca play­er and vocal­ist, this cat is a threat on so many fronts that it’s not fun­ny.  This is one of the most impres­sive, sol­id blues albums I have heard in quite some time.  There are no gim­micks, no high-tech pyrotech­nics and absolute­ly no B.S. to be found, just a band pour­ing heart and soul into a per­for­mance.  This one is pow­er­ful and pas­sion­ate, strong as an old loco­mo­tive with a full head of steam and no desire to slow down.  This one gets my high­est rec­om­men­da­tion.  It belongs in the library of every blues lover…without ques­tion.  — Bill Wilson”

http://chickenwilson2.blogspot.com/p/sept.html

You can pre­order the CD now at Amazon.com –it will be released on Sep­tem­ber 18th.

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Jackson O'Leary
Jack­son O’Leary

Chris O’Leary and Charis­sa Shields are delight­ed to announce the birth of their son Jack­son Ronald Thomas O’Leary, on Mon­day, July 27th at 3:45 pm. Jack­son weighed in at 8 lbs 4oz and already has his father wrapped around his lit­tle fin­ger: “The sec­ond my baby boy opened his big blue eyes I was done, toast, com­plete­ly in love!” Join us in con­grat­u­lat­ing the proud parents!