Tower of Power Rocks On

With a career spanning 39 years and 21 albums, the Bay-area soul-funk band Tower of Power is a true musical institution.

In fact, founding member Emilio Castillo who plays tenor sax and sings background and lead vocals, compares the group to an institution of higher learning.

The ten-man group includes original members Castillo, and baritone saxophonist Stephen “Doc” Kupka. Notable alumni include saxophonist Richard Elliot, trumpeter Lee Thornburg, Saturday Night Live musical director Lenny Pickett, and saxophonist Steven Eugene Grove (Euge Groove).

“It's kind of like a college – people come in and they're really good players and they leave even greater, and along the way we help each other out,” he said last week in a recent telephone interview. “Afterwards, it's always a source of pride to say [they] played with us.”

It's also a source of pride to Castillo to name some of the artists that he and Kupka, as the Tower of Power horns, have toured and recorded with. The list includes the Monkees, Santana, Elton John, John Lee Hooker, Rod Stewart, Jefferson Starship, Heart, Spyro Gyra, Aerosmith, P. Diddy, and many others.

When asked to list some of his favorites, Castillo says, “I'm very proud of the work we did with Little Feat. And certainly, Huey Lewis and the News…. I [toured] almost four years with them in the ’80s. They were an excellent musical group and we saw eye to eye musically, and Huey promoted my band at every turn. He was pretty responsible for getting us back on track in our career. I also enjoyed playing with the Rolling Stones, and the Eurythmics.”

Tower of Power is about halfway through recording its latest album, a collection of covers of both well-known and obscure soul classics. Because of exposure on the Internet and through first-generation fans, Castillo says the band's audience is getting younger, especially in Europe and Japan.

After nearly 40 years, Castillo says he still loves what he does.

“We stay at nice hotels, eat great food, play really nice places, and we travel all over the world…. I'm totally blessed. I love the job.”

Seal With A "Kiss"

Seal, the British-born singer-songwriter of Brazilian and Nigerian heritage, burst on the music scene in 1991 with a self-titled album that presented a unique fusion of soul, folk, pop, dance and rock, and immediately brought him success on both sides of the Atlantic. Although he’s only released three albums since — six, if you count two live recordings and a 2004 hits collection — Seal continues to attract a large and intensely loyal international following.

Despite his relatively sparse recording output, the 44-year-old singer, whose real name is Sealhenry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, has managed to remain in the public eye. He’s released enough new music to remind listeners of his distinctive soulful voice, including a Grammy-nominated cover of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk On By” on Best 1991 – 2004, and the song, “A Father’s Way” (from the film The Pursuit of Happyness), which received a 2006 Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song.

With a lean, muscular 6’4” frame, Seal’s sheer physical presence has always been enough for him to garner media attention. Growing up in the image-conscious MTV era, Seal has been savvy enough to take advantage of it. He might have gone into modeling, but was initially discouraged by the facial scars he carries as a result of a childhood bout with lupus. But when he decided on a performing career, Seal became convinced that the half-moon scars under his eyes were an omen of future stardom.

“I got really depressed about [the scars] at first, as you can understand,” he said in an interview with Rob Tannenbaum of Rolling Stone magazine. “Now I really like them. If I could design something, I don’t think I could do it better.”

He did design the rest of his look, which at one time featured long dreadlocks, but now sports a clean-shaven head.

“True beauty is internal and eternal — it doesn’t matter what’s only skin deep,” he has said.

Apparently, his view of female beauty tends to be more traditional. Seal dated supermodel Tyra Banks in the mid-90s, and married supermodel Heidi Klum in 2005. The couple has two children.

Seal began his performing career singing in London clubs and bars. He joined an English funk band called Push, which was successful enough to tour Japan in the mid-’80s. From there, Seal took advantage of his time abroad, immersing himself in a variety of musical cultures, and perhaps influencing his own eclectic style of pop music. While in Asia, he joined a Thailand-based blues band. After a short time with that group, he traveled throughout India on his own.

When he returned to England, Seal started collaborating with artists on the local dance music scene. He wrote and independently recorded a song called “Killer” with keyboardist Adamski. Its balance of dance and rock, coupled with Seal’s emotional singing and lyrics, took it to the top of the U.K. charts.

The song caught the attention of producer Trevor Horn (Tina Turner, Pet Shop Boys, Yes), who signed Seal to his ZTT label and produced his eponymous debut in 1991. The album was positively received by both critics and fans, and the singles “Crazy,” “Future Love Paradise” and a new version of “Killer” all performed well on the charts.

But it was Seal’s second album, also self-titled, that established him as one of pop music’s top artists of the ’90s. The 1994 album was also produced by Horn, and featured guest appearances by Joni Mitchell and Jeff Beck. It included the singles “Prayer for the Dying” and “Newborn Friend,” and received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. A third single, “Kiss From a Rose,” performed modestly when initially released, but later became a worldwide smash hit when it was featured in the film Batman Forever. “Kiss From a Rose” went on to win Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1996, and became Seal’s best known song.

Sales of 1998’s Human Being failed to match those of Seal’s first two albums, and the singer went through a difficult period, both personally and professionally. He had a falling out with Horn and left ZTT Records for Warner Brothers.

Seal returned to form for 2003’s Seal IV. Again produced by Horn, the album was a critical and commercial success, and included the singles “Get It Together,” “Waiting For You” and “Love’s Divine.”

In blog posts on Seal.com, his official Web site, Seal has talked about his new album (no, it's not called Seal V - it's called System) which hits the streets November 13, 2007. He says it will reflect a return to his roots as a club singer. Some of the song titles include “Amazing,” “System,” “Wedding Day” and “The Right Life.”

Hoping for a fresh sound, the album will be produced by Stuart Price, known for his work with Madonna, No Doubt, and Coldplay.

“The new record is really shaping up and is turning out to be much of a dance record,” Seal said in a recent post. “Over the years I’ve somehow become more known for my ballads, which I also love doing, but dance music has always been close to my heart. Make no mistake, there will also be a killer ballad or three on this record, but at this point in my life I really want to make something that is more dance-directed.”

Tom Jones Sheds His Lounge Singer Image

Tom Jones has always had an image problem. Even as far back as the late ’60s, when early hits like "It’s Not Unusual," "Delilah," "Help Yourself," and "What’s New Pussycat" sold millions of records, younger fans who knew Jones mainly from his ABC television variety show saw him as a throwback to the Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra-style singers their parents liked.

The hits kept coming in the ’70s, but the singer, whose on-stage gyrations would elicit screams (and sometimes undergarments) from the females in his audience, couldn’t shake the Las Vegas lounge singer label. Then, sometime in the ’80s, a funny thing happened — Tom Jones became cool.

Perhaps it was because Jones, born Thomas John Woodward in Pontypridd, South Wales, never took himself or his overwrought persona too seriously. Or maybe it had more to do with his undeniably powerful voice and a musical repertoire that included pop, rock, soul, R&B and country. In Britain, contemporary artists had started acknowledging Jones as an influence. "It’s Not Unusual" was re-released and became a hit again. In 1988, he collaborated with British techno-pop group The Art of Noise on a cover of Prince’s "Kiss." The song became Jones’s first worldwide Top 40 hit in more than 10 years, and the accompanying video won the “Breakthrough Video” MTV Award.

At age 66, Jones is still dealing with image problems. He may be older, but he’s far from an oldies act. These days, he has a harder time convincing American record companies than fans of that fact.

“With me and other entertainers of my age, unless you’ve been selling records continuously, record companies in this country are frightened to take a chance with you,” Jones says.

As an example, he points to his 1999 British release, Reload, a collection of collaborations with artists like Robbie Williams, the Pretenders, Barenaked Ladies, Van Morrison, and Simply Red covering songs like "Burning Down the House," "Lust for Life," and "Never Tear Us Apart." The Reload album sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, but was never released in the United States.

“I thought we were bound to do a deal with an American company, because it had been successful everywhere else,” Jones says. But still they came up with excuses. I was told that there were too many European artists who were not known in the States on the album. We did have offers, but they weren’t good enough. We didn’t feel that they were going to put enough effort behind the CD, and we just didn’t want to put it out for the sake of putting it out.”

As a compromise, Universal Records released Reloaded: Greatest Hits in 2003, a 19-song retrospective that included six tracks from Reload, and a mix of old and newer hits.

“Universal got behind it because of the classic hits that are on there, so I think it was a good way to introduce some of the newer things that I’d recorded that a lot of the American listeners hadn’t heard,” Jones says.

Jones continues to record albums that American fans have to buy as imports. His most recent are 2002’s Mr. Jones, which was produced by the Fugees’ Wyclef Jean, and 2004's Tom Jones and Jools Holland, a blues collection featuring the ex-Squeeze keyboard player. Recent releases by Paul Anka and Neil Diamond aside, among his contemporaries Jones’ continued productivity is a rarity.

He’s also forward-thinking when it comes to performing. He still sings his most popular older hits, but rather than live comfortably in the past, Jones usually showcases more recent material in his shows. He’s also not afraid to take risks. Name another 66-year-old performer with the gumption to open a show rapping to a bona fide hip-hop track (“Tom Jones International”) and look comfortable and sound good doing it.

“I like a lot of modern music,” he says. “I like a lot of new producers. So it’s something that I listen to. When I hear a great-sounding record, I want to know who produced it. That’s why I want to work with modern producers. That’s why I did a CD with Wyclef Jean.”

The Mr. Jones sessions also marked the first time in his 40-year career that Jones co-wrote some of his material.

“I need suggestions,” he admits. With Wyclef, he would suggest something, and then bring it out of me. He would say, ‘I’ve got an idea for a groove, an idea for a song.’ Then he would explain the concept to me and ask me to put it into words.”

Jones believes the key to his success is that he has never tried to emulate another singer, no matter what style of music he sings.

“I’ve been influenced by a lot of singers, but I’ve never tried to copy anybody,” he says. “When "It’s Not Unusual" first came out, it was being played in this country on black radio stations, because they thought I was black. I wasn’t trying to sound like any of the great blues or soul singers. I was doing it in my own way.” Because of his eclectic taste in music, Jones has always enjoyed working with other artists.

“When I had my TV show on ABC in the late ’60s, early ’70s, ABC realized that I could do all kinds of music, and I could do duets with all styles of music artists,” he says. “ABC was pushing for more middle-of-the-road people, and I was always pushing for rock singers. I got my way, because the TV show was successful. So the idea of doing collaborations with different artists started then.”

Jones says that R&B singer Usher and rap star Nelly have expressed an interest in working with him. “It could happen,” he says. “I could do a CD like Reload with American artists. Who knows, it might even get a record company interested.”