One of COB’s found­ing four (O’Leary, Vitarel­lo, McCarthy and Ingrao), Sean (Min­now, Carl) enjoyed a music career span­ning sev­er­al decades in the Hud­son Val­ley and played with vir­tu­al­ly every blues head­lin­er in the area (Lit­tle Sam­my Davis, Bill Per­ry, Pete Hop, Jere­my Baum, Slam Allen, Andy Fol­lette, and many more). Aside from Mr. Used to Be and Wait­ing for the Phone to Ring, most peo­ple know him from his work in The Real­tors, Rock­ini­tis, The Bluescast­ers, The Eldo­ra­do Kings and as a mem­ber of the house band at the leg­endary Side­tracked Blues Jam in Pough­keep­sie. Recent med­ical com­pli­ca­tions have made it nec­es­sary for Sean to hand his sticks over to Jason Devlin, but he’s pleased to see such a tal­ent­ed guy sit­ting behind the COB kit.

We wish all our fam­i­ly, friends and fans a hap­py and healthy new year, and hope it will be filled with plen­ty of great blues music! We had a blast ring­ing in the new year last night at the Towne Crier Cafe for the third year in a row. If you weren’t able to join us there, please come ring in the new year with us this Thurs­day night (Jan­u­ary 3rd) at The Fal­con, in Marl­boro. Din­ner starts at 5:30 pm (reser­va­tions rec­om­mend­ed), and the music at 7 pm (so you can get home ear­ly on the “school” night).

We have plen­ty of great shows planned for 2013, includ­ing a US west coast tour this sum­mer. We’ll update our web­site cal­en­dar as infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able, so keep checking.

It was front page news in West Hele­na, Arkansas, “The Great Lev­on Helm Forms a New Group.”
The old news­pa­per arti­cle announc­ing the 1990s event hung like a tro­phy on the wall at Gist Music.
“It’s the Barn Burn­ers” pro­claimed Chris as he turned to the old man stand­ing behind the long counter. “Can, I take this down? I was in this band with Lev­on. I played with him. Can I take this down?” He repeated.
“What?” said the old man hold­ing his hand to his ear and lean­ing slight­ly forward
Begrudg­ing­ly Chris unglued him­self from his spot and walked the dis­tance to the counter built cir­ca 1949.
Helm is to West Hele­na, Arkansas, a town that sits a tobac­co-chewed spit throw away from the Mis­sis­sip­pi, what Elvis is to Memphis.
And it is also host to the annu­al King Bis­cuit Blues Fes­ti­val. Once a year, West Hele­na aligns its main thor­ough­fare with ven­dors sell­ing bat-sized corn dogs, alli­ga­tor morsels and BBQ while thou­sands of blues fans aim­less­ly stroll the street as if mes­mer­ized by the sus­pend­ed cloud of smoke belch­ing from the tanker-sized smokers.
Chris reached the counter talk­ing with the speed typ­i­cal of a New York teenage girl. Morse Gist leaned clos­er in an effort to catch Chris’ words. When Chris’ del­uge came to an abrupt end. Gist’s shoul­ders soft­ened as he set his eyes on Chris.
“He was a good man and the world is a less­er place now that he is gone,” said Gist final­ly under­stand­ing the con­nec­tion between Lev­on and this fast-talk­ing Northerner.
Andy and I took a step back to allow Chris and Gist a moment to talk about their mutu­al friend.
“Yes, that is true and you can’t say that tru­ly about many peo­ple,” answered Chris.
Chris hung his head low. The air in the store stood still and now both men stood silent for a moment. Slow­ly Chris lift­ed his head and filled his chest with air.
“I miss him.”