Oakland’s funky ambassadors power through to 50
Almost every day, people come up to Emilio Castillo and tell him they can’t believe Tower of Power, the Oakland funk band he co-founded in 1968, has been around for 50 years.
He always replies the same way: “Neither can I!”
Castillo still has vivid memories of meeting baritone sax player Stephen “Doc” Kupka that year at the Alameda County Fair over the Fourth of July weekend, and together forming the band with the express mission of getting to play at concert impresario Bill Graham’s famed Fillmore Auditorium.
Not only did Graham ask them to play, but he signed Tower of Power to his San Francisco Records imprint, releasing the group’s breakthrough 1970 debut, “East Bay Grease.”
Coming up behind psychedelic rock acts like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Tower of Power came to be known for carving its own show-stopping R&B niche across the bay with horn-driven, era-defining hits like “Down to the Nightclub” and “What Is Hip?”
“We’ve always pushed the bar musically from a rhythmic standpoint,” said Castillo, 67, a tenor sax player and vocalist, taking a breather at his home in Phoenix last week. “We have our own signature. We have our own voice. That’s what you’ve got to find.”
That voice will be recognized by the city of Oakland with a Tower of Power Day celebration on the steps of City Hall at noon on Thursday, May 31, followed by a pair of homecoming shows at the Fox Theater on Friday and Saturday, June 1-2.
The 10-piece band also has a new album, “Soul Side of Town,” its first in nearly a decade, that prominently fea-
tures longtime players Kupka, drummer David Garibaldi and bassist Francis “Rocco” Prestia.
“The musicianship in this band is off the chain,” Castillo said. “These guys are world-class players.”
The album also features Tower of Power’s latest vocalist Marcus Scott, who was brought on after Carlos Santana lured away Ray Greene — although Greene may drop in on the shows at the Fox Theater, along with several other former members, including keyboardist Chester Thompson and saxophonist Lenny Pickett, who now leads the “Saturday Night Live” house band.
Castillo said the group has learned to roll with the punches. In its prime, Tower of Power was one of the most in-demand horn sections on the West Coast, performing with the likes of Elton John, Bonnie Raitt and Huey Lewis and the News; all while pointing the way forward for brass-heavy ensembles like Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Signing to Warner Bros. for 1972’s “Bump City,” the multiethnic group had a spectacular run with uninhibited, brass-heavy releases like 1973’s “Tower of Power,” 1974’s “Back to Oakland” and 1975’s “Urban Renewal,” all prominently featuring iconic imagery of the band’s hometown.
When the sound of the pop charts shifted, the band temporarily lost its footing, hitting a low point with the 1979’s disco driven “Back on the Streets,” which was recorded for Columbia. But not for long.
“The record company wanted to us to sound like other bands and no matter how many times we tried to please them we ended up sounding like Tower of Power,” Castillo recalled. “So I said, ‘Let’s just make the music we’ve been making.’ As soon as we did that, things started to get better.”
It wasn’t always an easy path.
Vocalist Rick Stevens, who joined Tower of Power in 1969, replacing Rufus Miller, left the group after its second album was released, just as it was on the cusp of a major breakthrough.
“It was chaos,” Stevens said in an interview with The Chronicle in 2013. “Egos, drugs, women. I lost all feeling. I was drained.”
In 1976, Stevens was convicted of murder for killing three people in a drug deal gone wrong in Los Gatos. Sentenced to death, he was paroled by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012 after 36 years behind bars.
He died in 2017, the same year Garibaldi and bass player Marc Van Wageningen were struck by an Amtrak train crossing the tracks to get to a performance at Yoshi’s nightclub in Oakland’s Jack London Square.
They both suffered serious injuries but have since returned to the lineup.
“It was beyond anything I’d ever felt or experienced,” Garibaldi said. “I had broken bones, a traumatic brain injury, couldn’t walk or feed myself and, realistically, I didn’t know what to expect.
“After being home about a month, I got up one morning and was able to put my pants on by myself. That was a huge moment. From that moment on, I knew I’d be OK. That thought helped me to heal and get back to my life.”
The group lost another longtime family member, trumpet player Mic Gillette, who died suddenly of a heart attack in 2016.
Castillo got sober in 1988 and turned to God, after making what he describes as every mistake he could possibly make during the band’s first two decades.
“We’ve had very trying times,” Castillo said. “We’ve had horrific things happen. We’ve lost people that we love. But we’ve never thought about stopping. My resolve has always been there.”
“We’ve always pushed the bar musically from a rhythmic standpoint. We have our own signature. We have our own voice. That’s what you’ve got to find.” Emilio Castillo