Transcendental Tower Of Power

Is Hoping For A 2008 Hall Of Fame Invite

By John Voket

Leo Sacks, a New York record producer who has co-written several songs for the powerful pop horn ensemble Tower of Power with band founder Emilio Castillo, recalls the bandleader trying to sum up a quintessential performance.

“When Tower of Power starts to groove,” Castillo said, “I mean really starts to click, we enter what I call ‘the Oakland Zone.’ That’s when we’re really in the pocket, when our fans jump out of their seats and give us back that same high energy that we’re putting out. It’s almost a transcendental experience.”

It is this shared transcendental experience playing out more than 100 nights a year with tight brassy exuberance and incomparable funk that Castillo hopes will propel Tower of Power into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the year the band celebrates its 40th year on the charts.

Castillo and fellow sax man Stephen “Doc” Krupa remain as the original TOP vets nearly four decades after launching a high energy horn driven cover band that leaned toward seldom-played album cuts from James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and a cast of other classic soul acts from the 1960s and ‘70s. The pair, along with eight other accomplished players, will be filling the auditorium at The Ridgefield Playhouse For Movies and The Performing Arts with sound October 17 as part of a stellar fall series that also includes separate dates by Pat Metheny Trio, Dave Mason with John Mayall, Keb ‘Mo, Blues Traveler, and a return performance by Orleans.

Castillo sat down for a generous half-hour interview with The Newtown Bee this week in advance of the show to talk about his and TOP’s influences, their dreams for a hall of fame berth, and the love story behind the band’s biggest hit.

Newtown Bee: You’ve talked about living in Detroit until you were about 11 years old, but it wasn’t until you moved to Fremont, California, that you discovered soul music. Do you ever look back and think about what you missed knowing what kind of Motown history was being made in what was then your own back yard?

Emilio Castillo: You know by the time I moved in the summer of 1961, I already had a pretty good foundation in Black music from my parents because they were big fans of the Platters, The Inkspots, Diana Washington, Nat King Cole. So when I got to the Bay Area I was lonely for all my friends in Detroit, and that’s when the Motown sound hit. So the radio was my best friend, and that Motown was a big influence on the way I approach music.

My parents moved back there when I was 18, so I got to go back and visit a lot. Our original band was actually called The Motowns. It was my mother’s idea, because we were from Detroit, but we knew we could never get into places like the Fillmore East with a name like The Motowns.

So one day I was walking through a recording studio and someone put up a list of possible band names on a bulletin board, and that’s where I first saw the name Tower of Power. I thought, hey, this sounds like us, and everybody in the band agreed.

NB: Your roots in Tower of Power go back to 1967, and while horn-driven rock was still making a big impression in pop music at that time, it was starting to fade against guitar and a short while later, synthesized-driven material. Did you ever have any thoughts about scrapping the horn, or even the whole horn section to try and deliver the kind of act the music business seemed to be looking for back in the early to mid ‘70s?

EC: Not really. We learned at the end of the ‘70s when disco came in the record company asked us to try and sound like everyone else, even suggesting we should cover some Motown songs. But we didn’t sound like everybody else, and we tried to please them. But we ended up sounding like Tower of Power anyway.

So when we realized that, our fan base kind of rallied and everything started getting better. I never really though about being more synth-driven, or lose the horns.

Listen, we make this music because we love it, not to get rich off of it. It’s a selfish act in that respect. But we find when we are selfish, the fans love it.

NB: “You’re Still A Young Man” remains arguably your most requested audience favorite, and I understand this was the band’s, or your first attempt at original songwriting for the band. Now back then, you were still a young man, so what inspired you to script that song from the perspective of someone much older?

EC: We used to play all obscure cover songs, soul music like “Big Old Man,” by Otis Redding. And I would change the rhythm section around. And one day Doc came to us and said, “You’re good at what you do, why don’t you try writing our own lyrics.”

A couple of days later, we were listening to a Curtis Mayfield tune and it had one song that was really pumping. Doc said we need to have a trumpet intro like that. So we wrote the intro that you hear today. And then Doc said we need a story. So that day I went home and this older woman I was seeing, she was the love of my life, and she said to me, ‘You should find someone else, don’t waste your time with me, you’re a young man.’ And I took that idea and ended up with “You’re Still a Young Man.”

NB: TOP plays the backing arrangements on one of Aretha Franklin’s most riveting recorded concerts. Can you talk about Franklin in terms of who she was back in 1972, and how she may have influenced you and the band at that time?

EC: We played a famous gig with her at the Fillmore West, and we had gone to New York and started getting some notoriety. And we befriended her regular drummer, Bernard Purdy, who had been sitting in with us and introduced us to a lot of her other musicians. The way they approached playing her brand of soul music was a big influence to us. I was always a sucker for great singers, and I’ll tell you, at that time we were having a feud with Bill Graham. And even though he could have picked a lot of other musicians to back her at that Fillmore show, he picked us because he later said he knew we were the best backing horn section for her.

NB: There’s no denying that if it weren’t for Bill Graham, we might not know TOP as we do today. But he was also much more than a passing acquaintance for Tower of Power. What were some of the things he taught you about the music business?

EC: One thing he taught me, and he taught by example, was to be magnanimous. Even if you were not in agreement with him, he would treat you with respect, and he would treat his people with respect. He always took special care of us.

I remember in the early ‘80s it was tough times. We weren’t doing too good. But Bill hired us to play all his private parties, and one Christmas he got to the party and came to find me. He asked me to come back to his office and I thought, oh-oh, what did one of the guys do now?

But he sits me down and says, ‘I know you guys have been having some lean times, and I’ve been having a good year,’ and he hands me an envelope. He says, ‘you can either keep it yourself or share it with the guys,’ and then he walks out. And I looked in the envelope and it was stuffed with $10,000 in cash. And throughout our career, he always put us on high profile gigs, an AIDS benefit with the Grateful Dead, opening for the Stones at Candlestick Park, he literally went out of his way to make stuff happen for us many times in his life.

NB: While many classic acts like Little Feat and CCR, and newer artists like Eurythmics have used Tower of Power strategically, why do you think it’s so rare for a new act today to come out with the kind of classic ensemble or formula that TOP has succeeded with for almost 40 years?

EC: Music has just gone a different way – the way music gets presented to people. It doesn’t matter the format, you get the same 60 or 80 artists over and over and over. That’s why young people are downloading stuff from the Internet and listening to satellite and Internet radio.

A young person today knows they can have the bling, and a million dollar production, and come out of the stage in a cloud of smoke – that’s how they look at music. And don’t get me wrong, I goy nothing against that. But when I was that age, I just was saying, hey this is fun. And I’m happy that a lot of famous musicians from those days are music teachers now, and they are steering these young musicians towards Tower of Power and other groups of that era.

NB: I understand you’re looking to score for a major film project, as you continue working toward that goal, what else do you see as you look ahead for yourself and the band in the future?

EC: I’d love to tell you every day I work towards my goal of getting a film score, but I’ve got a great band, we tour a lot, I’m writing new music and I’m into enjoying my family and my life. And next August Tower of Power will be on the road 40 years. You know, the curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says, I know it might take a few years, but I’m gonna get you in there.

NB: Well I’ve got to say with your 40th anniversary coming up, there seems to be no better time to see Tower of Power inducted into the Hall of Fame…

EC: The way I look at it, we just keep showing up, keep the standard really high and keep it interesting. I’ll tell you one thing: I’ve got no complaints!

For details and tickets to the Ridgefield show on October 17, call 203-438-5795 or visit RidgefieldPlayhouse.org.

Tower of Power will also be playing a pair of shows in Uncasville, at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den, on October 19 and 20. Call 800-2000-2882 or visit MoheganSun.com for details about those shows.