Joseph Kevin Quealy

Joe was one of a kind.

Some of you asked for a copy of the lyrics to the song I performed at Joe's celebration of Life.

YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/COF3mYr3gtE

The Joe Quealy Tribute Song
To the tune of Wagon Wheel

A Parkfield festival would be incomplete
Without a San-Maria bbq treat
Leave it to Joe to make food for everyone!
Tri-tip drippin' over oak glowin' embers
Bringing-joy-to-Parkfield festival members
the sky fill with smoke, bluegrass jams
For everyone!

Chorus
So lets jump in the joeterhome and get on the road
To Nashville or where they like to call him Uncle Joe
Hey, Joe loved a good time
Let Joe run the sound, lights and the grill
Use charcoal and you’ll get an ear fill
Hey, Joe loved a good time

Every once in a while
You meet those bigger than life
Who opens his home
To musicians that’s right
he don’t charge a dime
It all evens out anyway

[CHORUS]

Charcoal, jeez guy,
What are you,
some kind of idiot!
I tell you the truth
Now if you get a little sad cuz Joe hit the roadster
Take a pull of his moonshine
Or a big Green Monster

[CHORUS]
Hey! Let’s have a good time…Joe would say, have a good time!

Joe was a good guy . Would always help when needed. Good bye

I met Joe when I was 18 years old in 1980 at his camp at the Strawberry Music Festival in California. I was struck with his generous fun loving style and hilarious politically incorrect conversation. He invited me to his house after the festival and we continued the party with more BBQ and Green Monsters for several more days. I realized there was nobody quite like Joe and nearly everything he said or did was unique to him. I often found myself just staring at him to see what he would do next.
I craved those perfect storm moments, often as Joe was preparing food for a party, where he became absolutely hilarious! I would always end up with a raging headache due to my blood chemistry being messed up after laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.
Joe booked Bob Hope for a show in the 1980s and invited me up to meet Bob. I couldn't make it but have often wondered what it would have been like to see those two trading comedic one liners.
He followed several bluegrass bands I was in and always had constructive criticism. After watching a performance video of the Weary Hearts (Mike Bub, Ron Block, Butch Baldassari and I) Joe quipped, “You guys need to dress better. You look like a bunch of penniless college students up there.” Which was, of course, what we were!
Joe showed up to a Copperline show (Bud Bierhaus, Janet Beazley, Marshall Andrews and I) and had converted the back of his old station wagon to a fully stocked wet bar complete with TWO working blenders mounted to the tail gate!
I stumbled on a letter on Joes old CPM office computer that Joe’s young nephew, Peter Baker had written home while staying with Joe. The young Peter was obviously struck with Joe’s sarcastic and unique comments that it made me laugh out loud:
“Uncle Joe said we were going to play tiddlywinks with man hole covers”
“Joe said we were going to the prison to watch a guy get fried”
“Joe said he would buy me $5 worth of fireworks if I helped him run cables in his shop all day”
Joe seemed to have a burden to see me succeed after observing my flakey youthful work ethic. I spent many hours in libraries studying stuff that interested me: history, paleontology, philosophy, archeology, astronomy and theology which was fine but Joe knew there was little chance of any of that nonsense actually making money. One day in 1984 Joe called me and said, “Hey guy, get your ass up here. A recording studio in San Luis Obispo burned down but the control room survived. I just bought a bunch of recording equipment for you for a song! You need to get your act together. Just pay me something when you can.“ That led to what I still do today 40 years later.
Goodspeed Joe! Thank you! Like a second father.
-Eric Uglum

How many kids do you see?

Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you must change and become like little children. The greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is the one who makes himself humble like this child. “Whoever accepts a child in my name accepts me." ...Matthew 18:3-5

Where does one start with JQ?
I met Joe in 1983, 43 years ago!! I had landed a spot playing bass in a bluegrass band that was near and dear to him, Lost Highway. They were wrapping up their final dates before disbanding.. it was Stuart Duncan who introduced us.. that introduction was staying at Joes, eating and drinking like a barbarian and listening to his record and live tape collection over his great stereo system. That was just the beginning… what followed was a myriad of adventures over the course of forty years.
Joe loved Bluegrass Music and was so passionate about it he always felt he needed to save it! He was a tireless (sort of, he was caught sleeping on the job many times!) promoter and supporter of the music and its people.
Eventually, after several fun trips to Nashville, Joe bought a house there and became my Bluegrass landlord. The rent was so cheap I didn’t bother paying it most months.. when I moved out we just agreed on a number and I paid him back and moved out in good standing. Through years were so many adventures and festivals. So many feasts, laughs and music. Joe taught so many things about BBQ, mechanics, sound, how to repair just about anything.. but biggest thing Joe taught me was make life fun.. and fun we had.. he was basically a fully grown big kid. Rules be damned! I’m gonna miss that big lug.. and he never gave up his secret Santa Maria Style Seasoning recipe.. standing ovation Joe! A well lived life.. RIP my good friend!
Mike Bub, Nashville TN.

Ditto crazy Pat and rowdy Rosie's memory I was there also Joe will be missed rest in peace my friend

A Big "615" hOWDY & Hello To all y'all!
It's hard to write this, so i will press on!, So may favorite memories. So if you know of the following epic Tales, add your own thoughts when you re-call these::: your smiles and laugh will be seen and heard in our hearts! Our epic Wedding in Plymouth 1998, Cowboy Dav's invention of "Chicken Pop Fly" Grass Valley Festival; b. The great "Joetorhome" Transmission Workshop/Jam Yosemite; c. All our children versed in "playing out of tune" and gaining their "Jam Busting" pins in Santa Maria festival when Alison Krause was 13; d. The Refuse Raiders Santa Maria festival; d. Mountain Lions jumping over the truck and trailer on the shortcut thru Parkfield to hwy 198 to get back home to Triple Creeks; e. Cabin #40 jam with Rodge and "Nuke" ! The fastest String changing workshop front-stage Station Inn Nashville (by the way that awesome venue, well it will soon be gone, Skyscrapers surround the ole" awesome "church o grass" Joe's bbq trailer Trailer. f. Tailgate riding while pulled with Joe's golf fart; Huck Finn Jubilee bottle rocket wars between 29 stumps camp - Camp Rude - and the Que-nude Camp; The first Camp Rude Festival, and all 5 after the first, still the best times, and the infamous AWESOME "Outhouse Showers". Love you all very much! The One Rose and I are Livin in the 615 on the Confederate held Rocky Mountain Top (top part of Roberson County), See yall at the best jam in the 615, (except for Watertown) jamming every Friday at Authentic Coffee in Millersville, LOVE YOU ALL, MISS YA MORE!

When I was a teenager, my Uncle Joe invited me to come down and work the Santa Barbara County Fair. It sounded like fun, I hopped on a bus and joined my uncle. The days were spent lugging lights and sound equipment to places the Fair needed sound and light tech. The good stuff came after the Fair had closed for the day.
Some folks would look down on the carnies who work the Fair. Carnies do not have the best reputation, some see them as dirty, shiftless, low class. Not Uncle Joe, he just saw folks that knew how to have fun. The carnies fired up one ride for us all to play on: the bumper cars. Uncle Joe was not a small guy, and knew how to shift his weight into a bump to rattle bones and loosen fillings. The ride workers were crafty, knew every trick to avoid hits and sneak attacks. I tried to hold my own, racing around an oval to find a good target to bump. I had an absolute blast, and remember this time decades later.
Uncle Joe did not look down on carnies, just saw them as people he could have a good time with as he rode on their rides. He knew how to have fun - how to enjoy life. Rest in Peace Uncle Joe, we will miss you.

When I was in my late teens, hanging with Eric Uglum and Mike Bub at festivals, I met the legendary Joe Quealy. Joe was barbequing massive amounts of Santa Maria-style tri-tip and chicken on a barbeque he’d welded out of an oil barrel, complete with a mechanism of wheels and wire to raise and lower the grill. The fat was dripping and smoking in the glow of the red-hot embers.

He was pouring Green Monsters for folks jamming and hanging around his campsite. These were essentially margaritas, but with a secret sauce - lime KoolAid. They looked exactly like that yellow-green Prestone radiator fluid, and Joe poured them out of an actual Prestone jug. I presumed at the time that he'd scoured and bleached the jug, but it's highly likely I was mistaken.

Joe cooked only with oak ("Charcoal? Geez, guy, what are you, some kind of idiot?"). He'd spend several hours getting everything ready, lighting the wood, and getting a good bed of coals going. He always brought several beat-up coolers full of meat to the festivals, and must've spent hundreds of dollars on food every time he went so that he could cook every night.

Eric Uglum and I would rip tastes off the tri-tip and chicken when Joe went in his old (crappy) motorhome. When it was ready we'd feast like kings.

Joe Quealy is a one-off - witty, resourceful, and as they say in the South, "He knows how to do." I admire him on a lot of levels - not least for his ability to be himself and not care much what other people thought of him. Most musicians who have spent time in California or in Nashville during Joe's tenure here will be familiar with Joe's huge personality.

Eric and I would drive up to Joe's house in Santa Maria with very little money, sometimes just enough for gas to get back to Huntington Beach, and we'd play a gig with the Bear Creek Ramblers. Joe's antics and his stage patter were hilarious, esp when the music fell apart. We'd make a few bucks, and there would be barbecue and the Prestone jug at Joe's house.

When my wife and I married, I was still a musician without much income (as in "not filing income taxes"). All I had was the work ethic I learned from my parents, and a few gigs here and there.

Joe was one of those many people who helped me a lot during those times, not just with his food and drink at festivals but with his life. He invited me and my wife to come live at his house in Santa Maria. I hear Joe did this for a lot of musicians. He didn't set any limits on our time there, and he didn't take any rent. Sandra painted the inside of his house while we were there, and we had a blast with him.

About a year later we moved to Orcutt for a short while, then moved to Nashville in 1990.

I'm grateful to Joe. I've had a handful of conversations with him in the past couple of decades, and he came backstage with Darlene at the AKUS Santa Barbara show last July, so I got to talk with him, hug him, and tell him I loved him.

Rest in peace, Joe Quealy. You're a legend.