SEAN COSTELLO Source: AJC.com Date: 04/2008 Writer: RHONDA COOK

Blues guitarist Costello laid to rest

Sean Costello was shy, yet he found his way — and his voice — with his guitar.

But the blues guitarist and singer was silenced before he could make it to his 29th year. His body was found Tuesday, the day before his birthday. On Saturday, he was mourned. Mourners crowded the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta to mourn popular blues musician Sean Costello.

"Without his guitar, he didn't know what to be," his mother, Deborah Smith told mourners at the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in the block between the Georgia Capitol and the Fulton County Courthouse. "He needed his guitar."

And it was who he became with that guitar that got him noticed as a young teenager.

"He identified with American music at a very young age," said Paul Campanella, who played with Costello. "He used music to reach out and show who he was. The stage was his sanctuary and salvation. He was home."

The cause of Costello's death has not been determined; it will be a couple of weeks before toxicology test results are available. The Fulton County medical examiner's office has said there were no signs of foul play in the Cheshire Bridge Road hotel room where the musician was found.

Costello got his first guitar when he was 9 years old, and he recorded his first album at 16, but he was remembered Saturday for surprising the music scene as young as 13.

"I knew great things would come," Michael Rothschild said of the first time he saw the 13-year-old Costello playing a hollow-bodied guitar. "I never saw him when he wasn't great ... at the top of his game."

Rothschild was impressed with Costello's performances of pieces by Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker. "He was steeped in [the music]. It was steeped in his heart and soul," Rothschild said.

Costello took up the guitar because he wanted to play Jimi Hendrix tunes, but he fell in love with the blues when he heard Howlin' Wolf.

"In our lives, Sean wasn't a star, he was the star," Campanella said. "It was his music that allowed him to shine the brightest."