Whether or not we can do that, I don’t know, but that’s what we’re shooting for and we’ll see how that all plays out.”įor tickets to the upcoming show, log on to. Eventually, I’d like to get in and do two more albums, one secular and one Christian gospel praise type of record. We’re overdue in Japan, we’re overdue in Europe, we’re overdue in Australia and New Zealand, and we want to get down to South America, so I would think that we’re going to do a lot of touring for a while. Until I do, I’m just planning on showing up to the next gig, and we have a lot of shows to make up and a lot of places to see. “I’ve currently been in ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ mode because with the pandemic I’m a little concerned on whether we’re going to see crowds. I don’t know what to expect.
“We just started hitting the road on August 8th and we plan on going pretty hard,” he said. Castillo, while remaining cautious, would also like to get a couple of albums done, with each one having a different theme.
Tower Of Power is planning on being on tour for a while to make up dates in various parts of the globe that were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I think it’s one of the reasons why our music has this timeless value because we’re not chasing any trends.” I just make Tower Of Power music, I don’t care if my sound is ‘retro’ or ‘old’ when I make music, it’s current to me and we do it in the way that we do it. Artists like Robert Cray and Bonnie Raitt were becoming popular and had big hits and I used to get asked about it all the time how I feel about my sound becoming ‘relevant’ again, and I’ll tell them the same thing, I don’t think about it. “I remember in the late ‘80s a trend came through during that time when the word ‘retro’ became very popular. “I very seldom think about trends,” he says. With this going on, Castillo and the band tend to ignore the trends and stick to what they do best. Numerous styles have been incorporated into it but these days it seems to be returning to its roots with a new crop of bands reviving the classic sound. The evolution of funk since it became popular during the ‘70s is a very fluid one. “There are tons of other soul music stars, we were influenced by Curtis Mayfield and The Impression along with the Philadelphia sound, the Memphis sound, the Motown sound and all those cities with soul that are known for it, places like Muscle Shoals. “It wasn’t like I wanted to have this sound, I wanted it to have a similar energy in our band,” he adds. His creativity, his energy and what he brought to the live show was something that I wanted in Tower Of Power. We also used to go watch Sly & The Family Stone before they ever put a record out, every weekend at this place called Frenchy’s in Hayward, California. For me, James Brown and Howard Tate, who was a great singer produced by Jerry Ragovoy, were big influences. “Every band, even rock n’ roll bands that weren’t really into soul music, were influenced by him.
“I think everybody when we were growing up was influenced by James Brown, bar none,” says Tower Of Power saxophonist and founder Emilio Castillo. Another act that had an influence on the Bay Area funk act was another band from the same region. The legendary James Brown and his band had an influence on Tower Of Power, much like they did and continue to have on a ton of other acts spanning various genres. It’s an early afternoon show with the doors opening at 11:30 a.m. On Aug. 15, Tower Of Power will be performing at Indian Ranch on 200 Gore Road in Webster. “What Is Hip?” will forever be their biggest hit but tracks like “So Very Hard To Go,” “Willing To Learn” and “We Came To Play” are each gems in their own right. Coming out of Oakland, California, with bombastic horns and righteous grooves, these guys are the pioneers of turning funk into a complete sonic arsenal. When funk music was burgeoning in the late ‘60s into the stellar art form people know and love, the members of Tower Of Power were fine tuning the style.
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