Top Row: Larry Braggs, David Garibaldi, Roger Smith, Rocco Prestia, Mark Harper
Bottom Row: Adolfo Acosta, Mic Gillette, Doc Kupka, Tom E. Politzer, Emilio Castillo
Ed sat stood before me with the twin monoliths as if he was a modern day Moses, holding the two tablets of commandments handed down from high above on Mt. Sinai. In his left hand, he held Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, which contained the euphoric “The Song Remains the Same,” and an Eastern-infused song that was perhaps my first experience with a primitive occult-like spell, “Dancin’ Days.” In his right hand, Ed held an album created by a band based in our own East Bay backyard, Tower of Power. “These are bands that are important,” he said cryptically. “They play real music, and you need to understand what they’re trying to do. You need to hear these albums.”
I was just a kid; I had no grasp of real music. Zeppelin’s music was very complicated, and sort of startled my primitive philosophical sensibilities (as it should), but Tower of Power was something else all together. Whereas Zep was primal, medieval-like majesty, the East Bay horn-driven band was tight, funky, hot, danceable, born and bred in the streets, and best of all, they had a very human groove. This was pre-disco soul music, filled with a huge heart, and it was real. If I had been older and hip, “it’s a motherfucker” would have also been used on that holy day. Alas, that definition would come later.
During the 1970s, Tower of Power reigned supreme with a brand of soul music that was deep and wide, and carried with it a genuine ingenious instinct for warm grooves. Albums like Back to Oakland and Urban Renewal and classic singles, co-written by Emilio Castillo, like “You’re Still a Young Man,” sealed their immortal status. But their path out of the 70s was marked with a profound fall that forced the band into a painful retrenchment period, inevitably remolding their essence, and reawakening their muse.
On October 18, 2008, Tower of Power celebrated their 40th anniversary as a band at the Fillmore. The stage featured numerous former and present members of the band in a unique celebration of their timeless and influential music at the base of their origins—the San Francisco Bay Area. Spearheading the anniversary and reunion was none other than the band’s co-founder, original member, and 41 years and counting, second tenor saxophonist and producer, Emilio Castillo. We sat down with the leader of the band for a lively conversation about Tower of Power’s excellent new covers album, Great American Soulbook, and various collaborations along the rocky path the band tread, pre- and post-disco era, the shifting patterns of the 80s and 90s, and beyond.
Ironically, Ed, my older and wiser childhood friend, is a chiropractor on the East Coast, and I often think of that amazing irony, how he twisted my internal philosophical spine on that day long ago, with the inhuman power and spectacle of Led Zeppelin, and the gorgeous humanistic musical shadings of Tower of Power. In the end, this music remains very relevant, and it is a testament to musicians like Castillo, who found the honest moments within the whirlwind of activities that often permanently derail a lesser artist. Indeed, Castillo rose and fell and rose, and few creative individuals (or non-creative, for that matter) are given those ethereal second chances in life. But he was, made the most of it, along with the effervescent Tower of Power, and continues in this fifth decade creating music so engaging, it often transcends the real, and just becomes music of the soul.
RR: I have a personal connection with you and Tower of Power. My family moved to Fremont in the early 1960s.
EC: Fremont, California?
RR: Yeah, we lived there until the early 80s, and I was out of high school. It was a magical time to grow up there during the 60s and 70s.
EC: Where did you go to school?
RR: JFK.
EC: Same as me. My bass player, too [Francis Rocco Prestia].
RR: How important was Fremont to your development as a creative artist?
EC: Well, I wouldn’t call Fremont the cultural capital of the world, but for some reason or other, that’s why I got into music. After learning how to play for a couple of years, that’s where I really got into soul music, and I think it had a lot to do with that area. The whole East Bay was really kind of a soul-driven community. Soul music was very popular there. There were a lot of Latino and Asian influences there, and certainly Blacks, and soul music was just very popular in the East Bay. Sly Stone was a disc jockey, and everybody listened to him. Bands like the Spiders and Sly and the Family Stone and Magnificent Seven—just all these soul bands were around. So yeah, it had a big influence on who I am today.
I moved down to Oakland when I was 18 years old, but Fremont, you know, it’s, like I say, not the cultural capital of the world, but there was something about the hang there that made me the way I am, and I appreciate it.
I grew up until I was 11 living in Detroit, and that was also a very impactful city. My father was a bartender, and there were a lot of blacks in our lives. My dad’s Mexican so he had a huge family, and there’s a lot of Mexican people in my family. They were young, and they were very much into music: Bill Doggett, the Platters, the Ink Spots, Dinah Washington and Billy Eckstein—my parents were into it, man—Elvis Presley; they dug music. I always had a passion for music, but I was mostly listening.
Then I got to Fremont, and I got into a little trouble one day. My dad said I needed to think of something to keep me occupied. That’s right when the Beatles came out. My friend had gotten a guitar, and we said we wanna play music, and my life completely changed. Literally, from that moment on, I had a band. I never ceased having a band from that day on, and I never wondered what I wanted to do from that time on. I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
RR: Speaking of your origins, it sounds like you’ve gone back to some of that music with the recent Tower of Power album, Great American Soulbook, which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit over the last few weeks.
EC: I’m really proud of the record. It came out really good. Kind of surprisingly good, actually, because it wasn’t something I wanted to do. Once I got into it, and got my head wrapped around it, it went really well.
RR: You touched upon it in the album’s liner notes, but did you want to expand on why Tower of Power did not view a cover album as a creative choice in the past?
EC: We’re into making music of our own so the idea to emulate someone else is not very appealing to us. We’ve never chased any trend. We tried a little bit to chase the disco trend in the late 70s at the urging of our record company, and even then, we sounded like Tower of Power. For a while there, we were down-in-the-mouth over it. “We’re cursed. We can’t sound like the other people, and they want us to. What are we gonna do?”
When we couldn’t get a record label or nothing, but we were still able to play, and there were still lots of fans, and we decided to come out of it, I just told the guys: “You know what, man? It ain’t a curse, it’s a blessing. We sound like ourselves. That’s a blessing. We should do nothing to ever mess with that again.” That was a rule we made, and we stuck by it.
Let’s face it, there’s a lot of people that have done cover records. When the suggestion came up, we said, “We’re not doing that, man. We’re not grasping for straws here. We know who we are.” My manager [Pat Rains] said, “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying there’s a problem to be solved. I’m saying that—for Tower of Power fans—you’re IT. You guys are IT. You’ve given them the same thing now for years—always an original CD. I just think it could be great if you give them a different slant. I’m not telling you to do it like this other people. I’m sayin’ do it Tower of Power style.”
We were still resistant, you know. Then, he said, “Let me just get a different reaction
from other people, some promoters we work with.” We ran it by these big promoters in Europe and Japan, and they were all in agreement: “If there is anybody in the world that should do this kind of record, it’s Tower of Power. They are the soul band.”
That made sense, but we were still hesitant. We just told him, “Oh, we’ll give it a try, but if we get bogged down, we’re going to abandon the project for an original record.” We started, and I was having a problem with a couple of the guys, health-wise. Things were going slow in the tracking, but I just kept plugging away. I’m pretty good when I decide I’m going to do something. I just keep putting one step in front of the other. By the time we got a third of the way through—these guys they hadn’t really heard it; they did their part and they were gone; I’m the one who is in the studio, putting everybody on, one at a time, afterwards—they were all talking about the tracks, saying, “Yeah, it’s kind of a bummer. The whole vibe is kind of a bummer. Maybe we ought to just start all over.” I said, “No. No. No. No. We are not starting over. These tracks sound good. You haven’t heard them.” And I played it for them. They were like “WOW.” (laughter)
I said, “Trust me, man. I know what I’m doin’ makin’ soul music. I can do this thing.”
Then, everyone said, “I had no idea it could sound that good,” because our state of mind at the beginning of tracking was down-in-the-mouth, and I said, “No, man, the tracks are good, and I have taken it to this place and it’s going to be good.”
RR: Well, I’m relieved you persevered to the end. What I’m enjoying about Great American Soulbook is that it sounds like a really cool Tower of Power show, but you also have these great guests on it, as well as a very consistent flow to the record.
EC: Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) Which surprised me. You know, like I said, when I get committed to something, I’m like an elephant—forward, forward, forward. (laughter)
RR: Let’s talk about the guests.
EC: Oh yeah, sure man. We were really having a hard time to get anyone to guest on it.
RR: Really?
EC: Yeah, absolutely.
RR: People didn’t do their homework?
EC: I was just about at a place where I couldn’t get anybody for this record. We found out that, basically, a lot of people have been doing this guest shot thing. I found out from George Duke [producer of four tracks on the album] that a lot of people have gotten burned, business-wise so a lot of people are more gunshy now about that.
RR: But the people you got were heavy hitters, though.
EC: Well, I did eventually. What happened was that I couldn’t get anybody. I had done the tracks that I produced. When we were cutting them, we stayed pretty close to the original in the rhythm tracks. Then, talking it over, we said we need to do a few that are not original—do a left turn rhythmically. I said, “What we’ll do is on my tracks, we’ll put our stamp on it with the horns, vocals, and strings.” And, you know, the rhythm tracks are also very much Tower of Power. What I’m saying is that arrangement-wise within the rhythm tracks, we stayed true to the original.
We decided that we were going to get another producer to do a few tracks, and George Duke’s name came up. We just said, “Why don’t we go to George Duke, and say, Here’s what we want you to do. We want to pick four songs, and we want you to go left on them, immediately, in the rhythm. And we came up with some specific ideas about that. He was really good with that.
[Duke] is a really liked guy in the industry. Everybody knows him. We figured that he’ll get us some guests. And he was having a hard time. He’s the one who told me that story: “People are just gun shy.” The only name he was coming up with was Ashanti, and he wasn’t able to pull it off.
By fluke, we knew this chick that worked at the zoo in Minneapolis. They have an amphitheatre there where we have some really great gigs once or twice a year. This chick started working for Joss Stone as a personal assistant, and she was friendly with Larry [Braggs], our singer. She e-mailed him and said, “Hey, guess what. I’m working for Joss Stone, and she’s a big fan of the band and digs your voice.” So Larry tells me that, and I said, “Let’s ask her to sing a tune.” At this point, I’m trying to get anybody. I wasn’t even that sold on Joss Stone. I knew that she was a white soul singer from Britain. She was decent, but I wasn’t like “man, let’s get her. We’ve gotta have her,” but I was like “let’s get someone.”
We got in touch, and she said she’d do it. After talking with her more, my manager worked out that she would do two songs. We were happy about that, but then when she came, right before she showed up, my manager said, “Oh, now they’re saying they’ll only do one song.” I said, “Why is that?” He said, “I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve been told by her people.”
And then she shows up and she’s like this gangly white chick from Britain. She comes in, and you can tell she talks a lot, because when she doesn’t know people, she just comes in and talks a lot. Very sociable, she’s a young kid, she’s nice enough, and I’m talking to her, and she goes out there and opens her mouth, and I was completely stunned. She was like a Supreme Soul Diva—like a veteran Soul Diva. Every time she did a take, she went to another place. I told the engineer: “Save every single thing she does.” (laughter)
She was groovin’ on the first tune with Larry—“(Heaven Must Have Sent) Your Precious Love.” Then, she comes in and says, “I thought we were going to do two songs?” I said, “So did I, but I was told that your people said you would only do one.” She said, “Who said that?” I said, “Somebody that works for you told my manager, after we were told you would do two, that no, you’ll only do one.” She said, “No, I’d love to do two.”
Meanwhile, the session was over. We had flights booked. We were flying out of town. I said, “Well, look—what are you doing?” She said, “I’m in town recording with Raphael Saadiq.” I said, “If I hook it up for next week, will you come back?” She said, “Yeah,” She came in, and I didn’t even come to the next session. She just did it with Larry and George Duke. It was his production on that tune. She sang “It Takes Two.” He sent me the disc the next day, and I thought: “Man, this chick is unbelievable.” I just loved it.
RR: You were able to get Tom Jones, as well.
EC: That was another struggle. We had done a tour with him, and he’s been a fan of the band for years. He’s an icon, he’s nice enough, but he’s not real intimate, you know what I mean? When you’re on tour with him, even though he’s a fan, he’ll come in and joke around for a second, but he keeps his distance.
With that being said, we got in contact. Our drummer, our past drummer, Herman Matthews, was his drummer so we told Herman, “Tell Tom we want him to do a guest shot on the record.” He comes back and says, “Yeah, he’d love to do it.” We were going to do a Sam & Dave tune, we got the ‘Yes’ and everything, but we never really heard from him, or his manager. We were getting closer to the end, and we kept telling Herman “He’s not getting in touch.”
Finally, Doc [Stephen Kupka, ToP baritone saxophonist] tells me “You know, his son is his manager. His name’s Mark Woodward. Do you remember him?” I go, “Why would I remember him?” He said, “We got high one night in Hawaii in the late 70s, all night long in the hotel room in Hawaii—just you, me, and him. It was Tom Jones’ son, and he was just gushing all night about how his dad loves us.” I said, “You mean that weird white guy—are you kidding me?” (laughter) He said, “No.”
I called up Herman and I said, “Hey, man, give me Mark Woodward’s number. I’m not getting no response out of Tom.” So he gives me an e-mail [address], and I send him an e-mail and I just came right out with it: “I’m told Tom Jones has consented to be on our record. We’re almost done. We need either a ‘Yes,’ or a ‘No’.”
Within five minutes, I get a call from Mark Woodward. He said, “I’m really sorry. We’ve known about this for the longest time. Tom’s just been busy, and blah blah blah.” I said, “Look—I understand. All I’m tellin’ you is that we really want to do this, and we’ve got to do it soon. We’re going to be in Vegas next week while he’s there for the whole two weeks.” [Woodward] said, “You know, Tom doesn’t like to sing in Vegas. He doesn’t
like to sing when he works, and he doesn’t like to sing when he’s in Vegas. Is there any chance we can do this some place else when he’s not working?”
I said, “I’ll go wherever you want and do whatever you want. I just need him to do it.” He said, “What about L.A.?” I said, “Perfect,” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Next week?” He said, “Absolutely.” So we fly to L.A. We got a really nice studio, Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank. He shows up right on time, just totally relaxed, relaxed, talking like we’ve been best friends for years, real intimate style, the whole time he was there. He was there for about 3 and a half hours. It was really comfortable. He did a great job, and it just worked out wonderfully. I was really pleased about that.
RR: And another legend, Sam Moore, played on the album.
EC: You know Sam Moore lives here [Arizona].
RR: I noticed you recorded his vocals at Chaton Recording Studios in Phoenix.
EC: Yeah, Chaton. I knew he lived here. I had done a commercial with him years ago. He did a Phoenix Suns commercial, and it went [Castillo sings in the “Soul Man” pattern] I’m a Suns Fan ditditdatdahditditdah… (laughter) you know “Soul Man,” but “Sun Fans.” Billy Preston was the producer, and I’ll never forget it. I went to the session, and they had these horn players from around town. They had my old trumpet player, Jesse McGuire, and me. I remember this young kid was playing baritone saxophone. We started doing the parts, and they sounded cheesy: ditditdatdahditditdahdah… and the baritone was way up in the top register, playing wimpy. I looked at him and I said, “Hey, man—can you play that down an octave?” He said, “Sure, but it’s written up.” I said, “Yeah, I know.” (laughter) But can you just take it down?” He said, “Well, yeah.” I looked at the ‘bone player, and said, “Same with you. Everything’s too high. There’s no fatness to it.” So we played a lick, and Billy Preston presses the top back and goes, “Do what he says!” (laughter) We knocked the session out real quick, and Sam’s wife comes in, and she’s the manager. She said, “Oh, man, thanks a lot, that really worked out great.”
The thought just never occurred to me. One day, I went, “You know what? Sam Moore lives in Phoenix. I’m going to call him.” So I got a number on her, and soon as I asked her, she said, “Yeah, he’d love to do it.” It turns out he had just done David Sanborn’s new record Here & Gone. [Author’s Note: I interviewed Sanborn for the site in August 2008, and when I asked him about Sam Moore’s vocal contribution on “I’ve Got News for You,” a track from that album, Sanborn replied, “Unbelievable. The Pavarotti of Soul. He’s part of the fabric of all of our lives. He’s the soundtrack. He shaped the direction of where music went. Those records that they did in Memphis—“Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’”—I mean, shit, man, it just doesn’t get any better than that. This voice is just like a nuclear fucking reactor.”]
My manager [Patrick Rains & Associates] manages David Sanborn so he was used to dealing with Sam Moore’s wife so it worked out quickly. She told me, “I want to do it with my engineer at his studio in town. That’s where Sam’s comfortable.” I said, “Whatever you want. I’m cool.” I sent him the files, and we went over one day. It was only me, the engineer Otto [D’Agnolo], Sam’s wife was there for part of it, but it was just me, Sam, and the engineer. And I’m in there, and I am dying. I’m literally dying. “I’m in the recording studio, recording Sam Moore, myself, for my record.” (laughs) I couldn’t believe it. I am such a Sam & Dave fan. I saw them when I was 16 at Mason St. West in San Francisco. I was in the front row, and they had a 13-piece band, all of these horns choreographed—it was a revue, you know. Man, I was changed. My whole life changed when I saw Sam & Dave. They were so awesome. I couldn’t believe that I was in the studio recording him. (laughs)
RR: You had a reunion of sorts on the record with Huey Lewis, who the Tower of Power horns played with for quite a while in the 80s and early 90s.
EC: I love Huey, but Doc [Stephen Kupka, ToP baritone saxophonist] loves Huey Lewis, he idolizes him. They’re best friends. Well, we’re all best friends. We know Huey really well. Doc said, “You know—you ought to call Huey.” By now, I’ve got three people on the record. (laughs) I went from having nothing to having three, and he’s saying, “let’s get Huey,” and I didn’t have any other duets. I was going home, and I thought, “I could split up the verses on “634-5789.” I didn’t even tell Doc. I just called Huey up, and he was really busy. He had one window to do it. He said, “In that window, I have to be with my kids. I’ve _got_to. I promised them, and I’m going to be in Montana. I’ve got a little studio over there so people can record me.” I said, “Great! I’ll send you the files. Just do it.” He said, “Yeah, man. I’m up for it.”
I sent him the files, and wouldn’t you know that he got sicker than he’s ever gotten in his entire life. I mean unbelievable sick. (laughter) He calls me up. I didn’t hear from him, and I’m out on the road waiting to hear what’s going on, and finally he calls me: “I’m so sorry.” You could still hear it in his voice. He was really sick. He said, “Man, I’m so sorry. I got sicker than I’ve ever gotten before in my whole life. I couldn’t even talk. I’m sorry. I haven’t done it. I really wanted to do it, and I’m really sorry, but I know it’s too late now.” I said, “Hey, man, it ain’t too late.” He said, “What do you mean? I thought you were towards the end?” I said, “I’m towards the end, but I’m doing this in between tours, man. It’s done when I’m done.” (laughter) I said, “So, just heal up; when you’ve got a minute, do the vocals, send them to me, and I’ll take care of it. And you don’t have to rush. When you get to it, get to it, and send it to me.” He said, “Great, man. I’ll do it.”
He does it, but (laughs)…he finds out…we didn’t know it was going to be a duet with Huey so we did it in Larry’s key. Larry’s a much higher singer so it’s kind of a stretch for him. He told me: “It seems a little high.” I said, “Don’t worry about singing it like the original because I’d rather have you put a different spin on it. Sing down into the key.”
I think it came out great. I really like it. Some people tell me that’s their favorite cut. I
just got an e-mail from somebody that I respect, and they said, “634-5789—that’s my favorite track.” (laughs) I was really surprised.
RR: Obviously, you have worked with Huey Lewis quite a bit. Let’s discuss that era.
EC: He resurrected our career [in the early 1980s]. Well, you know, after that whole disco thing, it was hard for us. Plus, we were all strung out, and everything. We weren’t living right. And because we weren’t living right, we lost everything. That’s really the short story: we weren’t living right, and we lost everything. I lost my home, I lost the home I bought my mother, I lost the restaurant I bought for my family, and I had to move to L.A., all strung out, and try to get my career back on track. We didn’t have no record deal. It was hard, hard times.
It was at a time when all these new bands were coming out—The Knack, The Cars, and then there was this new band called Huey Lewis and the News. I had heard the name, and I thought (you know out of all of these weird bands and weird names), “that’s a cool name: Huey Lewis and the News”—and I was playing at Bill Graham’s Christmas party. This guy shows up, good-lookin’ guy, and he comes backstage, and he’s gushing all over: “Man, I love your band.” We had just done all these new, original songs in the show. He said, “Man, where did you get those songs? They’re awesome!” He’s just going off. I’m looking at him, and he’s obviously allowed to be in the dressing room. This was at the Waldorf, Bill Graham’s nightclub. I’m thinking, “How’d he get in here? He’s got some kind of clout.” He said, “I’m sorry. My name’s Huey Lewis.” I said, “Oh, are you Huey Lewis and the News?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “I like the name of your band.” (laughter) He said, “Thanks, man. We ain’t nothin’. You guys—man, it’s about you guys. I remember being at Winterland with my chin on the stage, with my drummer, Billy Gibson. It’s just the two of us, chins on the stage, in awe. We love you guys.” I said, “Oh, thanks a lot.” Real nice cat. That was it. I just met him.
About a week, or a month later, a short time later, I was doing some recording at the Automat in San Francisco for another act; we were puttin’ the horns on. I remembered we were doing it, and Doc wasn’t there for some reason. It might have been one of the times he had to go into rehab, or jail, or something. The drug thing was really hittin’ us hard. Anyway, Huey Lewis was coming over to the studio, and he said, “Oh, man, how you guys doin’?” By now, I’m hearing about him a little more. I’m seeing pictures of the band in BAM [Bay Area Music] magazine, and he’s starting to get the hype. He said, “What are you guys doing? You guys think you can put some horns on this tune? We’ve got this song that’s perfect for horns.”
He had this song called “Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do.” It was like a Sam & Dave tune. It was really awesome. That’s the first time I heard him, and hear I was thinkin’ they’re going to be one of these [Castillo imitates a simple rock riff] nahnahnahnahnahnahnah… (laughs) you know. Instead, man, it’s really good music, really soulful, and the vocals were cool. We put on this really nice arrangement. I told Doc later, “Man, we did this session with this guy Huey Lewis,” and he said, “Oh, I heard about him. He looks like he’s got a cool band.” I said, “The music was soulful.”
I moved down to L.A. to try to get my act together, and they were down there playing at an outdoor facility somewhere out in Canyon Country. I think it was Magic Mountain. We went out there to go see their concert, and they said, “Would you sit in and play that song?” And then there was this other tune; they showed us the horn lick for “Workin’ for a Livin’”. Greg [Adams, former ToP trumpeter/arranger] sketched out a quick little arrangement, and we went out there and played with him. Then, they came to the Country Club, and we played with them there. We did another thing in Hollywood at the Whisky, or the Roxy, or something, and we started getting really friendly.
Then, he really hit it big with that Sports record. He came to me, and he said, “We would like to take the [Tower of Power] horns out on tour. What would you think about that?” And you know—we were really struggling, the band needed money, and I knew we could make some good money with him touring the world. I said, “I’ll do it. We’d love to do it, only on one condition.” He said, “What’s that?” I said, “You have to promote my band in every interview. We’ve got to be featured prominently on stage with the horn section. I need you to say “Tower of Power” a lot. That’s what I need you to do. And I need to be allowed to bring the band out to the big cities where you’re playing, and do midnight concerts, and you guys got to come in sit in. You’ve got to announce it at the show. I need you to promote us.” He said, “Man, I’d be happy to, and we’d love to come sit in. You can do that whenever you want. I’ll talk about you in every interview. We’ll do it up. We want you guys, and we want your band to do good.”
So, we made the agreement, we settled on a figure for the money, and we hired a publicist for that whole tour to promote the band. With the extra publicity coming from the publicist, with the midnight shows—he would announce it at Madison Square Garden: “Tonight, at the Bottom Line, Tower of Power’s going to be playing.” This was after we’d just killed them through the whole set. We were the highlight of his show. We were prominently featured. Doc would come down in the middle of “I Want a New Drug,” and do this funny dance, and it brought the house down every night. Then [Lewis] would say, “Tonight, at the Bottom Line, after the show, Tower of Power’s playing a midnight show, and me and the guys are all going over there to party. We hope you all come.” The place would be mobbed. We did it in Connecticut, we did it all over the place, and it really helped us.
Plus, right then, Letterman started hittin’ really hard. [Letterman’s longtime bandleader] Paul Shaffer’s a big fan, and so was David. They started having us on the Letterman show, and we did 16 appearances on Letterman before he got a horn section. That, along with Huey, really jump-started the career.
RR: The Tower of Power horns have collaborated with many other artists over the years. I thought we could talk about a couple more of those collaborations. First off, how about your studio and live work with Little Feat?
EC: Little Feat—we played on most of their albums. That was another one where we got called, and the first session we did for them, we did this song called “Spanish Moon” [on Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. I had heard their name, and we were on the same label. We were both on Warner Brothers. They seemed to be the darlings over there. We were coming down from our heyday, and they were, obviously, golden over there. I was kind of wondering about them—who they were, what their thing was, and I didn’t really know. When I heard we had a session with Little Feat, I thought, “I wonder what this is going to be like?”
I show up and there’s this guy named Van Dyke Parks producing it. I don’t know if you know who Van Dyke Parks is.
RR: Oh, yeah. I know who he is. [Author’s Note: among his numerous music composition, arrangement, and production credits, as well as a singular solo career, Parks is perhaps best known as the lyricist for the Beach Boys SMiLE album].
EC: He’s one of the weirdest cats in the whole world. A really trippy dude, he talks in this weird language; he’s a hipster kind of guy. He told us this story that Lowell George lost two of his fingers in a freak airplane accident, stuck his fingers in the propeller, and,
because of that, he has to play the slide. It just so happens that it turned out to be a blessing because he plays the slide really well. It was all a lie. We were just eatin’ it up.
I asked him, “So, what’s this song like?” He goes, “Well, when you approach this song, I want you to think that you’re standing outside an old funky red barn, and you’re throwing cow pies at it.” (laughter) I said, “O.K.—why don’t you just play the track.”
RR: “Yeah, and I’ll write all that down on my music sheets.”
EC: (laughs) He hit this track, and to this day, I wished they had released it like that because Lowell George was singing “Spanish Moon,” but he didn’t sing it the way the final recording was; he obviously re-sang it later. The original work vocal—he was down low, man. He was really snakey. It was so soulful, and Greg Adams wrote the coldest [horn] arrangement I’ve ever heard in my life. That arrangement is just killin’. It maxed down the boulevard. I just thought it was so great. We left there, and I was like “Man, Little Feat—wow!” Slow, funky soulful tune; seductive lyric—it was just wonderful.
Then, we went on the Warner Brothers music tour. 6 bands from Warner Brothers went to tour Europe. It was us, the Doobies, Graham Central Station, Little Feat, Montrose, and these little protégées of the Doobie Brothers called Bonaroo [Author’s Note: Not a misspelling of the illustrious festival; the band released a lone album in 1975.] We toured all over Europe. When we were there, we got really tight with Little Feat, friend-wise and, I must say, very much drug-wise. They were very much into hard narcotics, and that was at the point where we were into hard narcotics. We kind of had that in common.
We wound up sitting in with [Little Feat] a lot. When we sat in, the whole level of the performance would just skyrocket. We would do “Spanish Moon,” and man, they just loved it. We worked up a little Dixieland thing for “Dixie Chicken.” Every time we played, the audience would go wild. They really got received well in Europe, all over. By then, we had done other records with them. We did almost every record they put out. They said they were going to do a live record, and they wanted us to go and do the whole record with them. Greg Adams wrote out arrangements, really great arrangements.
We went to Washington D.C., which is where they were most popular, that Baltimore/Washington area, and we played 2, 3 nights of concerts there, and they recorded them. Then we went over to London and played the Rainbow Ballroom. They were really celebrated over there by the Brits and the Europeans so there were a lot of famous people hanging around, and there was a lot of dope and stuff.
It was really ironic because this one night they wound up calling it “Black Wednesday” because on Tuesday night, after the show, all the guys stayed up partying. Mic Gillette—who, actually, just recently rejoined our band again—was partying all night with Paul Barrere, Richie Hayward, and Lowell George, but mainly Paul and Richie. So they stayed up all night and all day getting high, and came to the concert on Wednesday for the soundcheck. A lot of the guys who were straighter were really upset. I remember right before we went on there was a big fight between Richie Hayward and Lowell. They were cussing each other out, and Richie turned around to walk away in a huff, and Lowell punched him. He punched him right in the back. And I mean hard. Our road manager Doug Zahn grabbed Richie because Richie turned around and he was going to kill Lowell. And that’s how we walked on stage. Paul was completely obliterated. He couldn’t talk. He was barely standing. Richie and Lowell were completely ready to kill each other, and the other guys were angry as hell, and that’s how we walked on stage.
Paul goes out there, and Lowell tells them, “Just turn his amp off.” They had this roadie out there that kept on turning off Paul’s amp, and Paul kept turning around and fiddling with it, and every time he turned it on and started playing, the roadie would reach around and turn it off. That’s how the night went. It was atrocious. We all got done, and everybody was like…“man, what a…”—we were just horrible.
That being said, Richie Hayward was so angry, and Lowell George was blisteringly mad that they played with a vengeance. And we played really well. Mic Gillette—even though
he had been partying all night, he was feeling no pain—played astoundingly. He took everything up a notch. He was just nailin’ it, and the horns were killin’. Drums [Hayward], Lowell and the horns were great, and they wound up using that for the record. (laughter) They re-recorded all the other stuff. We were stunned when we heard that. We couldn’t believe it. Then, when you think back, a lot of times when you’re over emotional like that, you play your heart out, and think that’s what happened.
RR: About 16 years ago, you played on a Phish studio album called Hoist.
EC: I had no idea who Phish was, and I went to this studio in Agora. Somebody was saying, “These guys are really huge.” I go, “Phish? I never heard of it.” “Yeah, they’re kind of like a jamband, underground band. They’re kind of like the Grateful Dead, and they have a following like that.” I go, “They’ve got a following like the Grateful Dead? They’ve got a huge following,” and they go, “Yeah,” and I said, “All right, cool.” We went there, and we played the tunes [“Julius” and “Wolfman’s Brother”].
I was impressed with their music. One thing I’ll say that wasn’t like the Dead was their music. I’m not a fan of the Dead’s music. I played with them a lot of times, and I was always amazed they had such a fanbase. I never thought of them as musically sound. They had a thing. They had a mystique. I think the audience was as much a part of the band as the Dead were. But Phish—they could play. Very musical. Greg Adams, once again, wrote some great arrangements for that session. I remember walking away thinking, “That was cool. That was good—musical.”
Maybe six months later, they called me up in L.A. and said they were playing there, and wanted to know if we would be interested in playing. I said, “Shit, we’d love to,” and as soon as I mentioned money (laughs)…they didn’t want to pay us. I said, “You’re inviting us to come and play for free?” (laughs) They said, “Well, yeah, we thought you might want to come and jam.” (laughs) We didn’t have the same reasoning about jamming that they do, I guess.
RR: You spoke about mystique, and there is a powerful mystique about Tower of Power, as well. Indeed, you just told some amazing stories about the different ways that people relate to the band and its music. Tower of Power had a very important show on October 18, 2008—the 40th anniversary gig at the Fillmore in San Francisco. What were your emotions like on that special night as your past, present and future members shared the same stage?
EC: (long pause) I’ve probably been higher on drugs than any person you’ve ever known in your life. I was quite a drug addict in my day, and I’ve been sober for 21 years. I’ve been extremely high in my day, but that high, on not one single mood-altering chemical, that high, that night, was unbelievable. And not so much on the stage, and not even on that night, but the three days of rehearsal proceeding it, and that night, and being with those people, and feeling the love and the respect, and just reminiscing about what we shared, and not only the band members and the crew guys and people that actually worked with Tower of Power, but the friends and people that came out of the woodwork
to be there that I hadn’t seen in years—I was as high as I could possibly be.
It was just totally exhilarating. The rehearsals were phenomenal. We have a DVD coming out. I have to go to New York on Sunday [September 20] to finish the video editing. I’ve been mixing it for the last six months. It’s all mixed down, and it sounds great. It does. We didn’t play poorly. We played good. But the rehearsals were phenomenal. (laughter) They’re not recorded. There’s a little bit of video film of it, you know, but I mean, we were just relaxed. Plus, I got this thing in me. I just beat them mercilessly. (laughter) We rehearsed 8 hours, and we never stopped. We may take a half hour to stuff our faces really fast, but then I was like “All right, get up here. Let’s go!”
I had so many people doing so much and I only had three days to get it all together. I had film crews and all this stuff. Man, I was possessed, and I was just whippin’ them dudes. When we were done, everybody was saying, “Man, you were amazing.” (laughter) I said, “It wasn’t me. That was God. That was not me. That was all God.” (laughs)
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- For my childhood mentor Ed, who turned me on to the twin towers of my musical foundation, Led Zeppelin and Tower of Power, among many other heady cultural touchstones, as if I was going to be someone doing something someday, and never would have imagined (or did he?) I’d get the chance to speak with the great Emilio Castillo. May your gifted insights continue ever onwards.
