Mountain Home Guide
Power to the Funk of Ten
R&B Group Tower of Power Prepared To Shake Up Elmira
by JOHN FULBER

Thirty-five years ago, one of Tower of Power’s hit songs asked the musical question: “What is Hip?”

They didn’t have an answer; it was more like an admonition: “What’s hip today, might become passé.”

If ever a band lived by its lyrics, it’s this Oakland, California, ten-piece horn-and-rhythm-section outfit. For forty years and nearly twenty albums, Tower of Power has kept a tight grip on its soul/R&B roots, outlasting the trends, out-funking the newest funky thing, and patiently out-waiting the latest generation of hipsters.

 And though some of its members may be nudging toward Medicare eligibility, they can still get down—check them out on YouTube, if you need to witness. Besides, age never held back the late, great James Brown, and anyone who watched this year’s Grammys knows Tina Turner is still getting it done. With that in mind, tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo, one of the group’s founding members, sees no reason to slow down.

The band, in fact, is enjoying a bit of a renaissance. They’re set to release a CD of soul standards, and they’re busy compiling a bunch of material for what might become an archival series of unused studio takes and recordings from live gigs. In addition, the group still tours worldwide, playing 150 or so dates a year, and the Elmira Riverview Holiday Inn will be one of their stops on April 5. In a phone interview, Castillo said to expect an enthusiastic crowd.

“We have an incredible fan base, incredibly loyal fans,” said Castillo as he puttered around his kitchen, preparing oatmeal. A nine a.m. interview is considered by most musicians as just cause for sacking a publicist, but Castillo is a happily married and devoted family man who has put his hard-partying past behind and just celebrated twenty years of sobriety.

The Internet, he continued, has been a boon. Castillo knew they had a large, dedicated following, but worldwide communication from ToP fans has shown him there is even more love out there than they could have imagined.

“In the last fifteen years, there’s been a whole new generation of young people coming to the band,” Castillo said. “With so many artists coming and going, and with a lot of artists using tape and sequencing and things like that, I guess word got out that if you wanted to hear really good live music then some of the best in the world is Tower of Power.

“So all these young kids are showing up, and it’s become quite popular to turn people on to Tower of Power. People will say to us, ‘I’m here and I have six converts.’”
The band has had its ups and downs, including a pretty rough stretch in the 1980s, and, after forty years, personnel changes for any band are inevitable. There have been more than sixty ToP members over the years; still, cofounder Doc Kupka (baritone sax) remains, and early members Rocco Priesta (bass) and David Garibaldi (drums) still anchor the rhythm section.

Their brand of funk/jazz/R&B, however, never really goes out of style; it may disappear from Top Forty radio—whose increasing irrelevance in this download world is another story altogether—but it always re-emerges, undergoes chrysalis, and comes out looking fesh to a new CD-buying public. Amy Winehouse moaning “no, no, no” to rehab while being backed by the Dap-Kings, who won’t use instruments made past the mid-1970s and still record in analog, is simply the lastest evidence of this musical cycle.

One of the latest of these new R&B songbirds, obviously a ToP fan, showed up to warble on Castillo and the boys’ homage to old soul music, which includes four James Brown songs and tunes by Otis Redding and Sam & Dave.

“We pretty much covered the gamut,” he addded. “Songs that we thought we could put a nice spin on. Joss Stone just came in and she sang ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You From Above,’” said Castillo. “And she’s going to come in this week and sing ‘It Takes Two.’”

The soul album hasn’t been given a title yet, though ToP Does R&B and East Bay Soul have been bandied about. (“We’re still fishing,” Castillo said, “but we’ve got to start zeroing in. It’s getting close.”) And, strangely enough, though it seems like a perfect match for ToP, the band was lukewarm to the idea at first.

“We really went into it half-heartedly,” said Castillo, “It wasn’t something we really wanted to do, but we have a new manager and he said, ‘You’re coming up on your fortieth anniversary, and you’ve given the people pretty much the same thing for twenty albums; it’s great, and we love it, but what if we stir it up a little bit.

“And we said, ‘Oh, man, it’s been done; everybody’s doing it; we don’t like to followtrends,’” said Castillo.

Their manager agreed but told them, “Of all the artists in the world who should do soul music, you guys should do it.” The band consented, but Castillo said they decided if the soul album got bogged down, they’d go back to the CD they originally planned to record.

“But we started the project and got about a third of the way through and started loving it,” said Castillo.

After the soul album, they’ll start their archival series. The band has rummaged through boxes of old cassettes and reel-to-reels and found some good things.
 “Some of it’s rehearsals,” Castillo said. “Some of it’s live gigs, all kinds of weird stuff. David Garibaldi, in particular, he’s a real packrat; but he’s real organized, and he’s always telling us, ‘Man, I’ve got this version of ‘Time Will Tell’ and you wouldn’t believe it!’”

Their manager made another suggestion: “Listen to the stuff. If there are some decent mixes, master it into a project.” So the band concentrated on four concerts and series of rehearsals that showcased their live repertoire. One of them was a Boston gig at a cellar club called Ka-Ka-Ka-Katy’s.

“This was when Lenny Pickett and Chester Thompson had come in the band,” said Castillo. “So we were really tight. And, ironically, the mix sounds really good. So we took it into a mastering guy and got it all fixed up and a friend of mine did some nice artwork, and that’s just about ready to go out. What we’re going to do is East Bay Archives, Vol. 1, East Bay Archives Vol. 2. You know, just keep on putting thiskind of interesting stuff out.”

The band had a string of hits, mostly in the early 1970s—”So Very Hard to Go”—but it has really kept going through touring and recording with other acts. The collaboration with Joss Stone, the twenty-year-old British phenom, is just one of many times ToP has played with or backed some of the biggest names in the business.

The band’s horn section has become famous as a separate entity. The Tower of Power Horns have often been called upon to augment touring bands and have been a separate group as session musicians, playing with the likes of Little Feat, Smokey Robinson, Elton John, and Rod Stewart. It would seem, then, that ToP would have a kind of split personality, not to mention, that the horn section’s notoriety would be a source of envy for the other fellas.

“It may appear so from the outside but we’re always together,” said Castillo. “Oh sure, we have intense jealousies  on every level. We’re a complete family here. We have all the stuff that goes with families. We’re all just really blessed that we get to play this music that we love. That’s Number One.

“We don’t have to play music we don’t want to play; we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do,” he added. “So, it’s pretty easy to go to work. We’ve all learned over the years how to put up with each other. That’s 150 days a year. So it’s cool.”

Where: Holiday Inn Riverview, Elmira, New York
When: April 5 at 8:15 p.m.
Tickets: $45 advance; $49 at the door; $199 for overnight package
Opening act: The Blind Chitlin’ Kahunas with Sax Man Dan Puccio