Helen at the 2011 La Honda Country Fair
by craig eddy
After graduating from Stanford this months featured musician Helen Casabona ended up in Sunnyvale. To this day she is still wondering why she didn't just move straight to La Honda. Safe to say she loves living here. Helen is a gifted guitar, keyboard and cello player. She first started taking piano lessons in the first grade. At twelve years old she got a guitar and because of her brothers banjo playing she started showing interest in Bluegrass music to the horror of her classical minded parents. I jammed with Helen once at a July 4th picnic and she pulled out all the classic bluegrass tunes on keyboards. However Helen really found her calling when she started listening to artists like Jorma Kaukonen, Reverand Gary Davis, Katie Webster, and as she says it "all those blind blues guys". Helen spent ten years playing guitar and ignoring the piano. Eventually she realized she could have a lot of fun playing the bluesy stuff on piano too. Her favorite venue to play was Saint Michaels Alley in Palo Alto. One of her favorite gigs played was the Sacramento Blues Festival where she got to play before Bo Diddley. These days Helen is performing with her friend Susanna in the duo Abalone Dreams. She loves playing in Abalone Dreams because it is very improvisational and the music is never quite the same from performance to performance. Look for Abalone Dreams and Helen Solo at Cafe Cuesta this October.
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