Tommy Castro - Stompin' Ground (2017)

Swaggering, razor-wire gospel-tinged soul, simmering deep blues and hard-grooving house rockers –AllMusic. com Gritty, funky, rocking and original –Boston Globe Blazing soul-blues rocker Tommy Castro’s musical roots run deep. As he unleashes his high-energy music to fans all over the world, Castro is inspired by the sounds he absorbed while coming of age on the rough and tumble side of San Jose, California. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, this was Castro’s home turf – his stomping ground. It was a place where the street-tough Mexican Americans and the counter-culture hippies came together to drink, smoke, laugh, party and listen to tunes – the hippies with their blues and rock, the Mexicans with their soul music. Mixing the blues-rock he loved and the soul music he heard blasting out from the lowriders cruising the streets, along with the socially conscious message songs of the day, Tommy’s own sound was born. He honed his guitar playing to a razor’s edge on the city’s competitive bar scene, where he learned how to capture an audience with his intensely passionate vocals, stellar musicianship and dynamic performances. Almost every major rock and soul act, from Ike & Tina Turner to Janis Joplin to Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal toured through the area, and Castro was at almost every show. He saw John Lee Hooker, Albert King and Buddy Guy & Junior Wells at the same local blues bar, JJ’s, where he often jammed, dreaming of one day busting out. Over the course of his career, Tommy Castro’s San Jose DNA has always inspired his music, whether he’s squeezing out the deepest blues or the funkiest soul grooves. He and The Painkillers – bassist Randy McDonald, keyboardist Michael Emerson and drummer Bowen Brown – have played hundreds of shows to thousands of music lovers, always leaving his audiences screaming for more.

TRACKLIST

1 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Nonchalant
2 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Blues All Around Me
3 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Fear Is The Enemy
4 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - My Old Neighborhood
5 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Enough Is Enough
6 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Love Is
7 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers Feat. Mike Zito - Rock Bottom
8 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers Feat. Danielle Nicole - Soul Shake
9 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Further On Down The Road
10 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers Feat. David Hidalgo - Them Change
11 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - Sticks And Stones
12 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers Feat. Charlie Musselwhite - Live Every Day