February 11, 1943 - July 6, 2018
"...From the far side of the ocean, If I put the wheels in motion, And I stand with my arms behind me, And I'm pushin' on the door, Could you find me? Would you kiss-a my eyes? To lay me down, In silence easy..." -Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"
His sparkling blue eyes could see as he looked up into the luminous skies above, our flower gardens below and the majestic British Columbia trees beyond, surrounded by the poignancy of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" he was listening to, with his body beside his three daughters and wife knowing their immeasurable love for him and his love for them, Oliver Bailey Cobb laid down, in silence easy, and passed away on July 6th, 2018, at our home on Denman Island, B.C.
Music was an integral to the moment of his death, just as music had always been so integral to the defining moments of his life. The point was never fame and mass recognition, but self expression and to reflect and engage the world at hand.
Born Oliver Bailey Cobb in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 11, 1943, O.B. (called "Obie" by friends and family) moved to Maine at an early age living in Yarmouth and later in Camden with his parents Harold Warren Cobb and Emily Cobb (nee Joy). Obie went to Deerfield Academy during his high school years. The value of his gift of music became more apparent at the age of 17 when he played drums in his first band called "The Spooks", later forming another band during his basic training in the Reserve National Guard.
Love of language and having a gift for writing his own lyrics, newspaper articles and short stories (in the early 1980's he wrote a weekly column for The Comox Free Press and earlier had written for a Montreal newspaper), his music and writing became a way of negotiating with the world. His music and writing were the ongoing conversations he had with life itself, his interpretation of it, his navigation of it-the exchange he had with those around him. A small vinyl record was made of his singing when he was a very young child. Later in life he recorded three CD albums (Backtracks, Hearts on the Street and New Delusions) and did other recording sessions of songs he wrote and played his guitar and mouth harp as he sang.
Obie was a great traveler and decided to leave Boudin College and made his way "out west" on his BMW to arrive in San Francisco in the 1960's during the golden age of literary fortitude, of Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg during his stay in North Beach.
"It's a fresh wind that blows against the empire" (a sign Obie made on his driveway up to the Madigan...his first home on Denman he renovated and leased from an old logging company). After marrying his first wife, Ginger Cobb (nee Mitchell), they left the U.S. in the l960's and came to Canada during the war in Vietnam. After living in Halifax and Quebec they headed "out west" again and in September l969, they came to Denman Island. Their daughter Landes was born in Montreal, Quebec and Julie was born in Comox, B.C. When the girls were very young they left with their mom to live in Kabul for five years before returning to the U.S. to live.
In 1976 Obie and Marion Juhala (nee Gehring) fell in love and later married. Obie built his first house and they made their home on a farm raising Marion's daughter, Ursula Juhala. Obie was kept busy building stalls and fences for the horses Ursula raised and rode as she grew up on Denman Island. He enjoyed taking his camera to horse shows and events Ursula was in and developed his own pictures in a dark room he built in our house. Obie enjoyed working with wood of all kinds. He worked on the Island at many different building sites and did other jobs. This included helping to build the back hall of our present older Community Hall, worked on building the new Community School, and doing odd jobs for many elderly residents of this Island over the 49 years he lived here. Obie organized a huge 100th birthday celebration of our country on July 1 which included bringing the Caravan Stage Company to Denman with their horses and music they brought with them as they traveled by wagon across Canada to perform in various places. Obie also traveled off Island to other jobs such as a building project in Inuvik with a crew of friends from Denman and a winter building project on an Island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America. In earlier times he was a fast and able tree planter in B.C. working on various crews and picked fruit in the eastern part of B.C. He built a B&B onto our house and enjoyed being a host to many guests from around the world. Over the years Obie became very enthused about gardening, not only being the one to build the garden beds and fences.
Obie's love for sailing, wooden boats (and wood of all kinds), came to him at five years old when his dad taught him to sail off the coast of Maine. Those were fond memories for Obie as he loved this time with his dad over the years and learned so much from a "seasoned sailor". Later in life Obie was the proud owner of a classic 32' teak and purple heart wooden Cheoy Lee sloop built in Hong Kong in 1953 and custom designed by J. Laurent Giles (arguably the most famous man in sailing history). After sailing around the coastal waters of B.C. for years, Obie came to accept the reality that he was loosing his strength as he aged with illness and accepted the challenge of owning a wooden boat ("to be willing and able to work like a man obsessed" he would say) and felt he could no longer do her justice. He also knew that he never enjoyed "motoring" and ended up, over the years, doing less sailing than motoring because one cannot direct the wind, only adjust the sails!
Obie was a great traveler and always traveled "light" (often taking his guitar which he took traveling and sailing on many occasions). His travels began in North America, and later thru Europe, the Middle East, the Khyber Pass on route to Kabul to see his children and again from Hong Kong thru India and Pakistan on route to Kabul. Later, Obie and Marion traveled to Japan and from there traveled to many countries in Southeast Asia loving meeting new and old friends, the food and all those traveling adventures one has when one has time to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
And as Obie's pulse wound down to a stop on July 6th, his music fell silent. He let Van Morrison provide the accompanying notes to a life exhaled and venturing into the slipstream.
If Obie was a song, it was the kind that got into your head and you couldn't forget. That song will be remembered always by his wife Marion Cobb (Denman Island), his step-daughter Ursula Gustafson (nee Juhala - Courtenay, B.C.), his daughters Landes Cobb (Berkeley, CA) and Julie Cobb (New York City), Jonathan Rose (son-in-law -New York City), three grandchildren (Anthony Chavez, Nicole Chavez and Kaitlyn Gustafson), his sisters Anne Moore (nee Cobb -Princeton, MA) and Jenny Khouri/Gallegos (nee Cobb - Plainfield, Vermont), many nieces and nephews in the Cobb family and extended family, and later in life Obie was called "Dad" by Mai Truong of Saigon, Vietnam (she met us in Saigon while traveling and we became her other "Mom and Dad").
"I hope we get a breeze before the boat comes back, I sail better downwind than on the starboard tack, I'd simplify the story to make it worthwhile, But you say it much clearer with one of your smiles..." Oliver Cobb, 1980 (song and lyrics).
Our family will have a celebration of life for Oliver Bailey Cobb on Saturday, August 17, 2019 in our yard and house on Denman Island, B.C. for friends and family (bring your instruments). Memorial donations in Oliver Cobb's name to the B.C. Cancer Foundation would be welcomed if you so choose.