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We are record­ing a live DVD dur­ing our show on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 11, at The Fal­con in Marl­boro, NY. It will make the video extra spe­cial if YOU are all there in the audi­ence! Come for din­ner (make your reser­va­tions now!) and stay for the show, which starts at 7pm (so you’ll be home ear­ly on that school night). It’s guar­an­teed to be a blast!!

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Richard Lud­mer­er, a con­tribut­ing edi­tor at BluesWax, the online week­ly for the Blues Revue Mag­a­zine, says that the band’s sec­ond CD, “Wait­ing For The Phone To Ring,” is as excit­ing as their award-win­ning debut. In his words:

‘Chris O’Leary spent his ear­ly career as a vocal­ist with Lev­on Helm and The Barn­burn­ers. The Chris O’Leary Band’s first CD, Mr. Used To Be, was nom­i­nat­ed for a Blues Music Award and was also a Blues Blast Awards win­ner for “Best New Artist Debut CD.” This fol­low up: Wait­ing For The Phone To Ring is equal­ly exciting.

‘O’Leary, vocals and har­mon­i­ca, has put togeth­er a tal­ent­ed band, includ­ing gui­tarist Chris Vitarel­lo; Jere­my Baum on piano; the horn sec­tion of Andy Stahl, tenor sax and Chris DiFrancesco, bari­tone sax; and the rhythm sec­tion of Sean McCarthy, drums and Frank Ingrao on bass. Willa McCarthy is the back­ground vocalist.

‘On the open­ing track, “Give It,” pro­duc­er Dave Gross pro­vides addi­tion­al per­cus­sion and helps to aug­ment the infec­tious beat. “With­out You” fea­tures a nice harp solo by O’Leary. Vitarello’s taste­ful gui­tar opens “Louisiana Woman.” “Pic­tures of You” fea­tures Baum’s piano.

‘O’ Leary is a soul­ful vocal­ist who also wrote all thir­teen of the album’s songs, and there isn’t a weak one here. Oth­er high­lights include “Hole in My Head” and the title track, “Wait­ing for the Phone to Ring”, with the lyric “If I’m too low for your stan­dards, what say you low­er your stan­dards.” “Ques­tions” and “His­to­ry” are two bits of New Orleans sec­ond line with addi­tion­al horns added mak­ing the over­all sound sim­i­lar to that of Room­ful of Blues. Dave Gross has quick­ly built a rep­u­ta­tion as a “first call” pro­duc­er and he once again proves him­self here.

‘This is a thor­ough­ly enjoy­able album. I find it dif­fi­cult to imag­ine how good O’Leary might become as this is only his sec­ond record­ing. O’Leary’s future is bright; he is one worth watching.’

BluesWax Rat­ing: 8

Reprint­ed from http://bluesrevue.com/2012/09/chris-oleary-band-waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring‑9–21-12/#

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Blues Now Poster of the Chris O'Leary BandThank you Blues Now for your amaz­ing hos­pi­tal­i­ty. We were dined, we were wined, we were giv­en a tour by an incom­pa­ra­ble tour guide through the beau­ti­ful city of Basel and we even heard the Swiss audi­ence holler between songs for the band. Basel, you were a blast!

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“As for The Chris O’Leary Band , what can you say as the say­ing goes , if you ‘aint got that swing and by god he swung from rafters of that Mar­quee last night, got them all danc­ing , you know with a name like O’Leary he was but com­ing home to see us…what a band .” http://www.facebook.com/Harvesttimeblues