Remembering Sean

April 15, 2008: I can't remember who called me first, my mom or my brother, to tell me the news that local Atlanta blues guitarist Sean Costello had passed away in the night. Found in a hotel in a seedy part of Buckhead in an apparent suicide, dead just before his 29th birthday, his death gave me a shock that still reverbrates two years later.
He was an incredible guitarist, a blues singer just beginning to grow into his voice, a bandleader constantly touring the country playing blues festivals, clubs, and bars, but to me Sean was also just a friend from high school.
I don't have any amazing or funny stories about Sean, but I can say that in the few years that I knew him a few memories stand out. I remember sitting in the back of 10th grade English Lit. class (where we first met) cracking jokes. I remember talking with him about relationships, particularly about his Venezuelan girlfriend that sometimes sat in on my Spanish class. He would pick her up after school in his classic old car from the 60s and they made a beautiful couple. I think a few times we went out dancing with some of her friends to a salsa club. And I remember Sean sitting in the band room (we went to a performing arts magnet school) and practicing guitar riffs, channeling Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, while we sat in awe and tried to pretend like it was no big deal that this 17 year-old white boy had the blues real bad.
After high school, I lost touch with Sean until 5 or 6 years later in New York when I went to see him play at a club. After the first set I went up to say hello and he invited me to hang around afterwards. We talked awhile and promised to stay in touch. I sort of dropped the ball on that one. I saw him perform one more time a few years later, and he had developed in leaps and bounds from earlier. We talked then too, although I was with some friends and they were ready to head home because it was on a weeknight.
I know that my family loved Sean's music too, going to see him play when he performed in Atlanta and buying his albums and those of artists he toured with, such as Susan Tedeschi.
What's interesting about the recordings of Sean's music is that they grow on you. The more I listen, the more I hear little things, in the guitar solos and in the lyrics, that speak to my experience.

For example, the despair and unease of his cover of Otis Rush's "Double Trouble"

"Some of this generation is millionaires
I can't even keep decent clothes to wear."

which I had on repeat all through the fall 2009 financial crisis.

Or the rambling guitar solo on "Feel like I ain't got a home," the perfect accompaniment to an anthropological field study away from home.

And the guttural growls midway through "Can't Let Go" calling out for us to hold on tight to the ones we love.

Sean, you and your music are missed.

If you want to learn more about Sean, here is a website:
http://www.seancostellofund.org/index.html

and some youtube videos: