Blue Sparks From Hell

Andy Goessling: Saxes, guitars, mandolin, vocals
Tim Carbone: Fiddle, guitars, vocals
Frog Fenstermaker: Bass
C.T. Tucker: vocals
Buck Dilly: guitars, Vocals
Terry Wetmore: drums, vocals

Band active 1977 – 2010

I met Andy Goessling when he was 14. Tucker (Blue Sparks From Hell’s lead singer) would pick him up in his ’46 dodge pickup with the front window that opened out. The kid never had a chance. Ha Ha!

There was lots going on in Long Valley in the mid seventies. People just seemed to show up with either an instrument or a dog… often both and a party would start! Lots of banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars… Claire Reynolds belting out the blues. Andy was the kid who was super talented. I saw him doing something with what turned out to be reeds for an oboe. “You play the oboe?”, I asked. “My first instrument”, he said. When my wife Linny and I got married, Andy played his oboe at her request. It was beautiful!

Tucker got a gig at a local bar and I remember after setting up, the bar owner asked me how old the chick was. “The chick?”, I asked. The dude points to Andy with hair down to his waist, “Is she 18?”. Knowing that Andy would be tossed from the club if I said any different I said, “Oh yeah, she’s 18”. And that was that. I think the original line up was Claire, Tucker, Andy, and Scott Gresitt. That was how it all began.