Interview with:

 Tommy Castro

 Blues Music Awards winner for Entertainer of the Year and Best Band shares coffee talk and reveals secrets

Photo: Amy Brat

By Liz Mandeville

On a beautiful sunny morning in July, I sat down to have coffee and talk about music with the man who won the Blues Music Award for Entertainer of the Year in Memphis last May, Tommy Castro. It was early by blues standards, especially considering Mr. Castro and his band, the BMA winners for Best Band of the Year, had just played a high energy show the night before, on July 10, 2010, at SPACE in Evanston.  I attended that show to review it for CBG and overheard Tommy comment that he had the next day off, so I wasted no time introducing myself and asking for this interview.

Castro had graciously granted me his time in spite of the fact that it meant giving up precious down-time in a calendar packed with summer tour dates. A rare day off in Chicago was a chance to hang out with his 20-something son (who was traveling with his father), get his laundry done, ride his bike or kick back and enjoy what has turned out to be a very successful career in the blues.

Tommy Castro & son at SPACE Photo: Amy Brat

Despite the rest of the world experiencing a bleak economy, Tommy Castro is riding high on a recently minted contract with Alligator Records, long the benchmark label for ambitious blues makers. His calendar is full and his new CD, Hard Believer, is enjoying brisk sales. So what got him to this point and what drives him?

To start with: coffee. When we met in the lobby of the Orrington Hilton, Castro was just finishing his breakfast and ready for some Starbucks. “I’m very picky about my coffee” Castro said, “I’m old, so I don’t get to do any other recreational drugs! I insist on good coffee!”

I wouldn’t call this veteran performer old. A seasoned, yet boyishly charming 50-something, he seemed relaxed, alert, fit and definitely in the middle, nowhere near the end, of his life journey.

Sitting over lattes in a local Evanston sidewalk café, Castro talked excitedly about his plans for the latest incarnation of his Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue. The blues super group is his pet project and brain-child, which spawned a CD on the Delta Groove label that was released in 2008 and featured the Tommy Castro band backing Deanna Bogart, Ronnie Baker Brooks and Magic Dick with special guests Marcia Ball, Curtis Salgado and Elvin Bishop.

Tommy Castro & Ronnie Baker Brooks with the Legendary R&B Revue, 2009 Photo: Jennifer Wheeler

Hot on the heels of that success, the next incarnation of the super revue took place in early July in Petaluma, CA. at the Mystic Theatre, starring The Tommy Castro Band, Ron Thompson, Janiva Magness and Sista Monica. Being a blues woman myself, I’d heard of Janiva and Sista Monica, but who, I asked was Ron Thompson?

“He’s the Baddest Man Alive!” Tommy exclaimed! “He’s played with everybody from John Lee to Etta James and Mick Fleetwood. You ought to hear this guy play slide! He’s the baddest of them all.”

“I guess touring with a package like that and calling it The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue insures I get a place on the boat!” Castro quipped, referring to the sold out Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise on which he is a regular act.  “I enjoy working with other artists. I’ve also done a guitar revue with Joe Louis Walker and Debbie Davies and I’m planning another revue with John Nemeth. It has to work both ways, you know, there has to be something in it for me and for them. It has to be an artist whose presence in the revue will help their career and the benefit goes both ways. Playing with me has helped Deanna break into markets she hadn’t previously played,” he said.

I asked him about his origins; Castro said he started out in the early ‘80s in southern California as the rhythm guitar player in a cover band.  “I was a big Johnny Winter fan,” he mused, “I was definitely a guitarist first, before I started singing or songwriting.”  Citing Elvin Bishop as another primary influence, Castro’s first cover tunes were by seminal blues artists Taj Mahal, Jimmy Reed and B.B. King. It wasn’t until later he decided to front his own group.

When I asked him what inspires his songwriting, Castro laughingly replied, “Pressure! When I need songs for a new project I sit down and write them.”

“Years ago, after my first record, I was playing a festival in Colorado. I was playing a lot of guitar back then, a lot of guitar! Bruce (Iglauer, president of Alligator Records) was out to see me. I asked him what he thought of the show and he said ‘What about the songs? All the music is good, but where are the songs?’  That got me to start focusing on songwriting and for the next 20 years I’ve done that. Just recently I’ve started to re-focus on the guitar; I’m even taking a lesson or two.”

I mentioned a song that had gotten the entire Evanston audience (at the show I attended the previous evening) singing along: “Trimming Fat,” from Tommy’s latest CD. It’s a novelty song about the economy with a call-and-response hook that’s irresistible.

“Yeah, Bruce (Alligator label boss) wasn’t crazy about recording a novelty song, but I was kind of thinking of Elvin Bishop when I wrote it. I’m a big Elvin fan and he’s famous for his story-talking songs. Nobody listens to the blues to feel worse! I think of it as a remedy.”

Time spent with Tommy Castro flies by fast, so I fired off the rest of my questions.

Q: I noticed you gave your trumpet player a song and plugged his new disc.

“I have the same guys on stage with me that are on the latest CD; Keith Crossan has been with me the longest. He’s played trumpet with Etta James, Boz Scaggs; I’m happy to see him launching his own CD.”

Q: How do you prepare for your shows?

“I guess I should be meditating or warming up or something, I’m just not disciplined enough! (he says, laughing) I usually end up on the bus with the band watching that same tape of a James Brown show. The band watches that same show over and over to get up for our show. That’s where we get our ‘secret weapon’ (he says winking). We play ‘Sex Machine’ near the end of the show to kick up the party a notch or two. James Brown Live at the Boston Gardens, that’s it!”

Q: You do a nice arrangement of “Sex Machine”; there are some nice, very musical moves in some of your other tunes too, there’s this one slow blues…

“You must be thinking of ‘Back up Plan’, it’s a slow blues with a key change. I got a lot of good ideas from John Porter. He’s a producer of contemporary blues records. He’s worked with everybody from Los Lonely Boys to Elvis Costello. We worked together on my Painkiller CD.”

Q: Most blues men play a Fender Strat through a Fender amp. I noticed you have your own thing going.

“Yeah, I’m playing a Gibson Firebird. I just got it recently; it’s the best thing I’ve done for my sound lately. I play it through a Red Plate head. A guy in Phoenix makes them -- boutique, custom amp heads called Red Plate. I turn all the highs all the way up and all the lows off. I run it through a Super Reverb speaker.”

Q: Last question, why the move to Alligator Records?

“Well, I have recorded with Blind Pig and Delta Groove and other labels. I have good relations with all of them, but it’s about the business. I have to look at what’s going to be the best for me and the band. I have not only myself to think about, but all the guys and all the support staff and everybody’s family to think about. There has to be something in it for me, you know? So I had to look at what label was going to get behind me and push. In this time when a lot of labels are scaling back on their artist promotion, here was a label that was moving forward. It was kind of a no-brainer.

As a business man, I think about the best way to do things, like on this tour, we’re parking the bus in the middle of the country and working from there. I have to think: is it more economical to fly out to the east coast for dates there or drive this big gas hog bus! Right now I’m thinking, is there a place the band could drop off their laundry or do we wait ‘til Indianapolis for that and just enjoy the rest of the day?”

Tommy Castro -- a real gentleman with a great band, and a positive attitude, who has worked hard and made the right moves-- decides to ride his bike. Tomorrow is soon enough for the blues.

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About the Author

Chicago Blues Guide is happy to have Chicago blues artist Liz Mandeville as our columnist.  A true renaissance woman, Liz is a sultry singer, award-winning songwriter, guitarist, journalist, painter, educator and all around bon vivant. She has performed all over the world and has four CDs on the Earwig Music label to her credit.  With each column, Liz takes us behind the scenes of Chicago blues and beyond, to share unique insights from people who have dedicated their lives to the blues.

Photo by: Eric Steiner