![]() He was in the group about two months and one night he had a really good night and he looked at me, and he says, "Mimi, I think I got it." And I go, "I think you do, Marcus." And he's been killin' it every night ever since. But, man, he found it and turns out his range is phenomenal! He has this really high piercing full voice that he goes into. He struggled when he first came in: he wasn't used to playing at this level. he was there a night early and showed up wearing a suit, dressed for action. And so we decided to give him an audition. It was definitely soulful and he could sing pretty high full voice. And when I was first looking at him online, it didn't really show off his range. You got to check him out." He sends me his info and I went online and looked at some videos. He said, we did 'So Very Hard To Go' and he was like a little Lenny Williams, man. So I needed a guy and I was looking really hard and I get a call from TC and he says, "Mimi, they had hired me to put a band together for the opening of a BB King's and I asked around who's the best singer in town? And somebody said check out this kid Marcus Scott. He's got two daughters getting ready to go to college. He's making twice as much money for half the work. We certainly couldn't blame Ray for going. I was looking for singers, you know, because Carlos Santana came and snatched up Ray Greene. He's a big fan of the band and we always call each other and laugh. I know a guy named Tony Coleman, they call him TC, who played drums for BB King for years and years and he calls me every so often. ![]() Oh yeah, I was just re-reading your interview where we were discussing Ray's arrival … seems like ages ago we talked. How did you connect with Marcus and what does he bring to the band?ĮMILIO CASTILLO. It's June 2017, and since we last spoke in 2014, Ray Greene has departed the band and Marcus Scott has joined. The following Q&A, taken from four interviews with the Tower of Power co-founder from 1977 to 2017, provide a survey of the group's history as a 50th Anniversary tour and recording of all new material mark 2018. That phone interview with Castillo, would be repeated in 2013, 2014 and again last year, when the bandleader was busy working on Soul Side and looking forward to organizing the 50th. Stephen "The Funky Doctor" Kupka still unloads frenzied runs of syncopated funk like automatic bazooka fire, and the band's leader, second saxophone, and, with Kupka, principle songwriter Emilio Castillo continues to sing lead on several popular numbers.īack in 1977, a half-decade out of Troy's trumpet ranks and a few weeks back in Southern California after starting my writing career on a Philly weekly, I was assigned a freelance profile of Tower of Power by the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Drummer David Garibaldi returned late in 2015 after hip replacement surgery, and bassist Francis "Rocco" Prestia has the new kidney he sought for many years. They laid down rich bars of fat, five-note chords made up of two trumpeters – who could add trombone and flugelhorn – and three saxophones – two tenors – one of which could switch to flute or alto – and a baritone.Īs if to prove the potency of that healthy mix, Tower of Power is marking its 50th year in 2018 with a new album, Soul Side of Town, a new lead singer, and the blended blast of its five horns still as polished as a mint condition Conn.įour members from the 1968 line-up are back on the stand and in good health. The five-piece horn section did more than add fills and flourishes. ![]() Ten-piece Tower of Power, with half its weight in brass, was configured more along the lines of a compact James Brown or Ray Charles orchestra. Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Sly and the Family were the most famous, but their sections were only three members strong. Pop, rock, soul, and R&B groups had been integrating brass into their bands rather than hire studio musicians to boost their recordings. Two-year-old Tower of Power's East Bay Grease was something different in the musical evolution of late 1960s. In 1970, news of the debut album from a horn-driven band from Oakland, California spread like honky pox through the USC Marching Band's trumpet section. ![]() HE'S GOT TO FUNKIFIZE Emilio Castillo Sessions with the co-founder-saxophonist of Oakland's Top Brass.
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