Tower of Power. (Courtesy photo)
BY JOHN BERGER / jberger@staradvertiser.com
It’s been 41 years since Hawaii — and most of the United States — discovered Tower Of Power. The group’s first Hot 100 hit, “You’re Still a Young Man,” was the first of a string of great songs and memorable albums.
TOWER OF POWERWith War» Where: Blaisdell Arena, 777 Ward Ave. |
Four decades later, Emilio Castillo, founder and leader of Tower of Power, and co-writer of most the group’s most memorable songs, attributes the group’s longevity to some simple principles.
“If you want to be a musician, be about the music, don’t be about the bling. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be smart (about the business side of it), but my thing is ‘Make great music that you dig, cause you’re the one that’s got to live with it,’” Castillo said Nov. 29, taking time off in Phoenix for a phone interview.
Tower of Power is in Hawaii this weekend for double-bill concerts with War tonight at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center and Saturday night at Blaisdell Arena.
Speaking from experience, Castillo also warns young would-be stars, “There’s a lot of stuff that can get in the way of you being a success. There’s all different kinds of ways that you can get off the path. Find a way to live right. Me personally, I’m a Christian.
I believe in God and I try to live according to the Bible. That’s me. I’m not here to shove the Bible down your throat or shove Jesus down your throat, but I will tell you this: You are not the center of the world, and there is God.”
“I used to have this phrase, real simple — ‘Live Right, Feel Right.’ For a lot of years I lived ‘wrong’ and almost lost it all. In the late ’80s I woke up, cleaned up, got a relationship with God, and things have been going up ever since.”
Tower of Power fans are celebrating the release of a new album, “Hipper Than Hip,” a two-disc set of a 1974 radio performance. The band’s record label, Warner Bros., recorded it, even though there were no plans at the time to release the recordings commercially.
“We had just finished (the) ‘Back to Oakland’ (album) and we were just getting ready to go out and promote it,” Castillo says. “We were in really good shape. That happened to be one of the best lineups that the band has ever had, and we were really at the best form of our career with that lineup.”
“Warner Bros. had this on master tapes all these years in their vault, and they mixed it and mastered it, and it sounds great.”
Castillo is working on an album of new TOP music that he expects to release in 2015. He’s using what he calls “The Michael Jackson method. I’m cutting 25 tracks, then I’m going to pick the best 12 (to release).”