Tommy Castro: The Next Right Thing
by Don "T-Bone" Erickson

Your first impression of Tommy Castro might be that he's a street tough all slicked-back hair and black T-shirt, pants, and boots. Castro may be streetwise and, indeed, tough (he has, after all, paid some dues), but his warm, ready smile will win you over in a New York minute.

Castro isn't from New York, however. The soulful singer with the slashing guitar licks hails from San Jose and is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. And his recent album, Soul Shaker, marks a return to Blind Pig, the label that launched his recording career.

"The truth of the matter is Blind Pig did a great job when I was with them," Castro said onboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise in February. "They've always been honest with me. They believed in the band, they believed in the music, and they always did the best they could."

After a brief experiment with his own label (releasing the acclaimed Gratitude, which paid tribute to his most personal musical idols and influences), Castro is glad to be back on familiar ground for his first album of all-new material in four years.

"We wanted to go back to a label that would help us move it," he says. "We also learned a lot about the record business and why we did not want to be in it," he says with a hearty laugh.

Castro's 1995 release Exception to the Rule put listeners on notice: Here was an artist who could combine Memphis-style soul and gritty rock 'n' roll while maintaining a true blues heart.

His guitar work, which seemed to combine the fire of Albert Collins with the finesse of Robert Cray, was icing on a cake that had several thick layers of soul and gospel filling. Over the course of several subsequent albums, Castro and crew never steered far from meaty, greasy grooves with the kick of a Mississippi mule.

It Takes a Village

Castro says his success has been a collaborative effort, and he gives much credit to his band and co-writers. "My whole focus now is writing songs," he says. "I've had the opportunity for the last six or seven years to go out with Delbert McClinton on the Sandy Beaches Cruise, and that's a songwriting affair. You just get exposed to the craft. My band has always been song-oriented. My act has been wrapped around the band performing the song and not so much about just getting up there and playing guitar. It¹s mixing styles that we love and coming up with a song of our own that will move
people."

Soul Shaker does just that, featuring background vocals from the gospel ensemble Roy Tyler & New Directions and a guest spot from slide guitar wizard Roy Rogers, which adds a Little Feat vibe. Co-writer Jeff Silbar came up with a catchy descending guitar line on ³Anytime Soon² that Castro says "took on the Latin feel on its own. It wasn't contrived." "Take Me Off theRoad," which Castro wrote with longtime bassist Randy McDonald, offers up John Lee Hooker-style boogie.

"There's a fatback groove that it¹s based on. Randy and I wrote that song one day going down the highway. We¹re sitting in the back of the bus, throwing lyrics around and having a ball coming up with ideas. 'You can take me off the road but you can¹t take the road off of me' -- there¹s a great story in that, you know. It¹s our life."

Castro wrote "What You Gonna Do Now?" with the Nashville team of McClinton and Gary Nicholson. "You spend so much time thinking about the past and regretting," he says of the song¹s lyrical subject. "The important thing is what's right in front of you. When it came time to put it together --how the band was going to perform it ‹ it seemed to have this cross between soul music and country. We were thinking of a Tyrone Davis kind of groove, OtisClay, from that school."

No matter who Castro chose to write with, each song took its own natural course. "We let the song dictate how it was played and how it's produced --what kind of a feel, what kind of a bag it¹s going to be,² he says. "We just took each song as it stood on its own and made it the best it could be."

The album features the infectious horn lines of Castro¹s longtime saxman, Keith Crossan, and Bay Area trumpet player Tom Poole. Crossan and Poole have worked together for 30 years, including playing in the same jazz band when they were students at the College of San Mateo. "They¹re joined at the hip," says Castro. "They think and breathe the same when they play together --it's amazing. They both said that "No One Left To Lie To" is probably the best thing that they have ever done together."

That song, a minor-key blues, might be the track that best represents how well the Castro collective can put together a piece of work from top to bottom, inside and out. Everything -- the heartfelt lyrics, the horn lines, the vocals, and the arrangements ‹ meshes together into cuts that grow on you and continue to stay with you long after the disc is over.

The Real World

"I wonder if I'm over-exposing myself sometimes in these songs, you know, but I've been going through some stuff," Castro admits. "I think you get the best songs when they're as real-life as they can be. Don't make up little stories because they're cute. I admire somebody who¹s got a clever way of turning a song, but for me, it's got to be something I know about, something I've felt or been wondering about or contemplating."

To illustrate, Castro points to Soul Shaker's title track. "We had this idea about meeting somebody and feeling that you had known that person before. You just don't feel like this is a new relationship for some reason. Rhythmically, it took on its own life --a feel that I don't think we've ever used before."

Further driving home the album¹s diverse mix of styles, Soul Shaker closes with "Big Love," a thick slab of funky soul that will ensure involuntary body movement from the listener. It's also one of the tracks that features the rich gospel harmonies of Tyler's vocal group. Envision James Brown backed by the Meters and the Blind Boys of Alabama and you might get a feel for the soulful musical stew cooked up here.

Tyler and company were brought in by Jim Pugh, the longtime Robert Cray sideman who plays piano and B-3 on the album. "[Jim] rehearsed with us before the sessions and we were all figuring out how to play these songs. I told him, 'I've got these background parts that I hear. I want some gospel singers. Do you know some guys that sing together on a regular basis?' I wanted to get some guys who know how to sing harmony together. He said, 'I can get you some guys. I'll get the bus drivers.'

"And I go, 'What?' He goes, 'Well, these guys sing with Roy Tyler and their day jobs are driving buses for Open Transit. I said, 'Well, cool, man! Line em up.'

"He goes, 'Well, Roy is going to have to be on this, too.' So Roy came down with these three guys -- fabulous guys to work with, they were just really good cats. They got right to business. I told them what I wanted, what I was hearing, and they got in there and worked out their harmonies. They really cared about what they were doing. They weren't there to just pick up a couple of bucks and do a session. They really wanted it to be good."

Oye Como Va?

Castro also got some assistance from a certain rock superstar whose own past is steeped in the blues.

"I stopped over to Carlos [Santana's] house, because he's been one of my mentors and advisers, kind of a confidant. So I go in there and say, 'Carlos, if you've got a minute, I'd like you to come by and play some of this stuff I'm going to record and see if you have some ideas.' He always has some cool ideas for me --way more than I can use.

"He heard the chorus on 'The Next Right Thing.' I had this hook. He said, 'To make this more of a chorus, you need this overlapping thing [Castro sings an example]. And I went, 'Wow! That's cool.' And that really makes the song. If you take that out of there, it would not have the strong chorus that it has now."

Castro says that in the end, his goal was simply to make the best record he could. "We had some fun with these other projects, we took some time off, spent some time working on material, chose the right players, and we really felt good doing this project with Blind Pig. We had several other offers on the table, but Blind Pig --if you had a list of reasons that you would go with a label, they had the longest list. We have history. We know them. We don't just know that in theory; we have experience with them."

How does Castro view the success he and his crew have attained after so many years on the blues scene?

"We've been at this a long time, and we plan to stay in it as long as we can. I never take for granted that I will be able to continue to do this. We get to work a lot. We¹re very fortunate. On the one hand you could say we earned it -- we always give them a good show everywhere we go. If there's 10 people in the crowd, we give them the same show as if there's 5,000. But at the same time, this is a business. There have been tough times for people doing what we do. I mean, it¹s not the easiest thing in the world to sell a 50-year-old white blues guy."

That gleam in Castro¹s eyes begins shining again, and he busts into that raspy laugh. And you realize that this man has the proper perspective on the fickle music business ‹ and that maybe things aren¹t so bad in the world of Tommy Castro.