Credit: Anna WebberThis year, veteran Bay Area band Tower Power has been promoting its 25th studio album, Soul Side of Town, with an expansive tour that’s also commemorating the horn-driven outfit’s 50th anniversary.
Tower of Power co-founder and tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo tells ABC Radio that with the anniversary in mind, the group put its best effort into making a quality album, inspired by something one of the band’s old managers told him.
“He said, ‘This isn’t the time to just throw 12 songs together and put it out. You gotta make the best record of your career,'” Castillo recalls.
Emilio explains that the group set out to achieve this by using “the Michael Jackson method, where you record way more than you need and pick the best 12.” With help from producer Joe Vannelli, Tower of Power wound up with 28 finished tracks, 14 of which appear on Soul Side of Town.
“I’m very proud of it,” Castillo says of Soul Side of Town. “It is a very diverse record. It’s a radio-friendly record. It’s creative. We pushed the bar musically, production-wise, engineering-wise, lyrically…[on] every level.”
Released in June, Soul Side of Town debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s Jazz Albums chart. Meanwhile, the band has been chosen to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the online soul-music resource SoulTracks, which will present the honor to the band as part of its Readers’ Choice Awards on December 10.
Tower of Power’s final series of 2018 tour dates is mapped from a show tonight in Madison, Wisconsin, through a New Year’s Eve performance in Las Vegas. The band’s 2019 U.S. itinerary is set to begin with a March 8-9 stand in Brooklyn, New York. Here are all of Tower of Power’s confirmed stateside shows:
11/15 — Madison, WI, Capitol Theater
11/16 — Fort Wayne, IN, The Clyde Theatre
11/17 — Findlay, OH, Marathon Center for the Performing Arts – Donnell Theater
11/29 — Honolulu, HI, Blue Note
11/30 — Honolulu, HI, Blue Note
12/1 — Honolulu, HI, Blue Note
12/2 — Honolulu, HI, Blue Note
12/8 — Robinsonville, MS, Horseshoe Casino’s Bluesville
12/14 — Monterey, CA, Golden State Theatre
12/15 — Napa, CA, The Uptown Theatre Napa
12/27 — Lincoln, CA, Thunder Valley Casino Resort
12/28 — Lincoln, CA, Thunder Valley Casino Resort
12/29 — Santa Clarita, CA, The Canyon
12/31 — Las Vegas, NV, South Point Casino Ballroom
3/8/19 — Brooklyn, NY, Brooklyn Bowl
3/9 — Brooklyn, NY, Brooklyn Bowl
3/12 — Hopewell, VA, The Beacon Theatre
3/15 — Nashville, TN, City Winery
3/16 — Nashville, TN, City Winery
4/6 — Naperville, IL, Pfeiffer Hall
4/18 — Irvine, CA, Irvine Barclay Theatre
4/19 — Pasadena, CA, The Rose
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