Interview: Tommy Castro
Tommy Castro may be one of the best blues guitarists around today, but he’s not going to try to prove it July 16 at the Lehigh Valley Blues and Jazz Fest.
“We just like to have a good time. It’s not just about me playing the guitar. A lot of my contemporaries are only wrapped up in their playing, but we don’t make that a focus of the show,” he says in a phone interview from his home in the San Francisco Bay area.
“A combination of blues, soul, and rock and roll” is how Castro describes his upbeat music. He says it is based on his songs, which combines those influences. “Most of them have all three of those elements. We don’t classify each song so much. We try to take a song and play it as we would naturally.”
Where many guitarists seem to use their vocals just to fill in between instrumental solos, Castro tells a story with his singing, with a strong voice that is based in R&B and soul. His precise blues guitar playing, supported by his mastery of many different styles, uses elements of rock and other types of music. Sax player Keith Crossan can emulate both the horn parts of soul and the raucous honking of rock and roll in the band’s live gigs.
Castro shows his influences upfront on his new release “Gratitude” (Utr Music Group 2003), a tribute album to the artists who inspired him. “We’ve put out seven releases--mostly of our own material--of the kind of music we like to play,” he says. “I had an idea in the back of my head that I could play some of my favorites just like when I was learning as a kid. We could take a break from songwriting and the record label, since this was put out on our own label. And it could give our fans a little insight into where our music comes from.”
It is no surprise that a B.B. King number is included (“Bad Case Of Love”). Castro was overjoyed to be a member of King’s Festival Tour of 2001. “B.B. is one of the greatest individuals I ever met. It’s great when one of your heroes turns out to be genuine.”
Another cut on the CD is John Lee Hooker’s classic “It Serves You Right To Suffer.” Hooker’s last recording before he passed away in 2001 was for the title track of Castro’s “Guilty of Love” (33rd Street Records).
Three different songs on “Gratitude” were made famous by Wilson Pickett, Chuck Berry, and Sam and Dave. Curtis Salgado performs on all three, taking the second vocal on the Sam and Dave number “I Take What I Want.” In April, Salgado visited the Lehigh Valley for the first time for a show in Emmaus.
The forty-nine year old Castro calls himself a “late bloomer,” since it was many years before he took up music as a full-time career. “I thought it would be too good to be true,” he says. “I played on weekends, and I always had some kind of band. Eventually, I was getting better gigs and better at my craft, so I made the move from San Jose to San Francisco.”
Castro says that he learned a great deal from the Dynatones, a soul band that he toured with for a few years before returning to San Francisco. He worked as a street musician for a short time, but soon began leading his own band—and has been for the last twelve years.
“I took every gig I could get. My band had a reputation as the hardest working band in the area, doing 350 shows a year, sometimes two a day, working six or seven days a week.” Since then, Castro says he works a more modest 250 times a year.
Castro credits all of the work with helping him to develop his own style. Instead of listening to other performers’ records, he had to come up with his own ways of playing. “I ran out of time to practice,” he says. “I was out there working.”
The guitarist says he has never visited the Lehigh Valley before, and with an itinerary that includes trips to Europe and cruise ships, he may not return soon. This Friday may be the last chance to see him locally for quite a while.
Tommy Castro Band, Friday, July 16, Lehigh Valley Blues and Jazz Fest, 9:30 pm, $12 at gate, three day pass $34, festival hotline 610-261-2888, web site at www.lvbluesfest.com.
--Dave Howell, 7/04
(This article first appeared in The Morning Call newspaper.)
“We just like to have a good time. It’s not just about me playing the guitar. A lot of my contemporaries are only wrapped up in their playing, but we don’t make that a focus of the show,” he says in a phone interview from his home in the San Francisco Bay area.
“A combination of blues, soul, and rock and roll” is how Castro describes his upbeat music. He says it is based on his songs, which combines those influences. “Most of them have all three of those elements. We don’t classify each song so much. We try to take a song and play it as we would naturally.”
Where many guitarists seem to use their vocals just to fill in between instrumental solos, Castro tells a story with his singing, with a strong voice that is based in R&B and soul. His precise blues guitar playing, supported by his mastery of many different styles, uses elements of rock and other types of music. Sax player Keith Crossan can emulate both the horn parts of soul and the raucous honking of rock and roll in the band’s live gigs.
Castro shows his influences upfront on his new release “Gratitude” (Utr Music Group 2003), a tribute album to the artists who inspired him. “We’ve put out seven releases--mostly of our own material--of the kind of music we like to play,” he says. “I had an idea in the back of my head that I could play some of my favorites just like when I was learning as a kid. We could take a break from songwriting and the record label, since this was put out on our own label. And it could give our fans a little insight into where our music comes from.”
It is no surprise that a B.B. King number is included (“Bad Case Of Love”). Castro was overjoyed to be a member of King’s Festival Tour of 2001. “B.B. is one of the greatest individuals I ever met. It’s great when one of your heroes turns out to be genuine.”
Another cut on the CD is John Lee Hooker’s classic “It Serves You Right To Suffer.” Hooker’s last recording before he passed away in 2001 was for the title track of Castro’s “Guilty of Love” (33rd Street Records).
Three different songs on “Gratitude” were made famous by Wilson Pickett, Chuck Berry, and Sam and Dave. Curtis Salgado performs on all three, taking the second vocal on the Sam and Dave number “I Take What I Want.” In April, Salgado visited the Lehigh Valley for the first time for a show in Emmaus.
The forty-nine year old Castro calls himself a “late bloomer,” since it was many years before he took up music as a full-time career. “I thought it would be too good to be true,” he says. “I played on weekends, and I always had some kind of band. Eventually, I was getting better gigs and better at my craft, so I made the move from San Jose to San Francisco.”
Castro says that he learned a great deal from the Dynatones, a soul band that he toured with for a few years before returning to San Francisco. He worked as a street musician for a short time, but soon began leading his own band—and has been for the last twelve years.
“I took every gig I could get. My band had a reputation as the hardest working band in the area, doing 350 shows a year, sometimes two a day, working six or seven days a week.” Since then, Castro says he works a more modest 250 times a year.
Castro credits all of the work with helping him to develop his own style. Instead of listening to other performers’ records, he had to come up with his own ways of playing. “I ran out of time to practice,” he says. “I was out there working.”
The guitarist says he has never visited the Lehigh Valley before, and with an itinerary that includes trips to Europe and cruise ships, he may not return soon. This Friday may be the last chance to see him locally for quite a while.
Tommy Castro Band, Friday, July 16, Lehigh Valley Blues and Jazz Fest, 9:30 pm, $12 at gate, three day pass $34, festival hotline 610-261-2888, web site at www.lvbluesfest.com.
--Dave Howell, 7/04
(This article first appeared in The Morning Call newspaper.)