In the concert review I wrote for Albert Castiglia’s July 2022 show at Denver’s Oriental Theater, I commented that he was “on one heck of a roll”. A year and a half later, that roll shows no signs of slowing down.
His last two albums, 2019’s Masterpiece and 2022’s I Got Love, each took home the Blues Music Award for Blues Rock Album of the Year. He has been named Blues Rock Artist of the Year the last two years in a row. His Blood Brothers collaboration with longtime friend Mike Zito resulted in two album releases in 2023 – their first studio album in March, and a live album in November.
The roll that keeps on rolling is bringing Castiglia back to the Oriental Theater on Sunday, January 28. In advance of that show, I sat down with Castiglia during one of his rare “days off,” earlier this week.
Note: Advance clarification might be necessary for the references in the following interview to Albert’s daughter “finding him.” In May of 2018 Albert was contacted by a daughter he didn’t know he had, who found him via a DNA/ancestry service. His daughter, Rayne, was herself a mother of two, making Albert both an instant father and grandfather.
Rick: Thanks so much for spending time with me today, Albert. When I set this up with your publicist, she said this was one of your “days off.” I assume she meant a day when you weren’t playing, right? I mean, when you’re touring, are there really any days off?
Albert: Man, when you tour as much as we’ve been touring the last couple of years, a stay in a hotel room can feel like a vacation. I lucked out because Mike’s (Zito) on the sandy beaches cruise with Delbert McClinton right now, and he let me stay at his house. His house is wonderful – it’s very much like my home.
You couldn’t ask for a better couple of days, actually. Yesterday, we played at a friend’s house in South Lake, Texas. It’s about 40 minutes from Mike’s house, on this huge ranch. It has the biggest man cave I’ve ever seen in my life, and I got to play a Stevie Ray Vaughan Hamiltone guitar. They only made thirty-six of these and the original belonged to Stevie Ray, of course. It was the one you see in the “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” video. So even though yesterday was a gig it was almost like a day off.
Rick: I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing. You’re just racking up the awards. You’ve got two consecutive albums that have won the Blues Music Award for Blues Rock Album of the Year, and you’ve won the Blues Rock Artist of the Year two years in a row. You do realize that when you’re competing against yourself, you don’t have to set the bar that high, right?
Albert: (Laughs) I think when you channel things that happen in your life, and you put it in your music, good things come out of it. When my daughter found me in 2018, that was when Masterpiece was created. Before that, my life was quite mundane. I mean, I had things to say. I was a happily married man with no children, and it was too late for my wife to have kids. I had a stepson that I consider my son, but no children of my own. I just kind of focused on being a musician and bringing home the bacon and living my life in Florida. And then suddenly I found out that I have a daughter that I didn’t know about, and two grandchildren.
All of a sudden, all these feelings, both positive and negative, started rolling through my head and my heart. Maybe if I were anybody else – if I was a plumber or an insurance salesman or a banker, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it. But fortunately, I was a musician, and I was able to channel my feelings through my music.
Then the pandemic happens, and there’s another set of life’s challenges. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to keep the house, and how I’m going to keep working. I have a liberal arts degree that I haven’t used in 25 years, so it’s useless now. I couldn’t get any work during the lockdown. So, I spent a year figuring out how to survive.
But we did it… we managed to get through it. And then in early 2021, I got COVID, with long COVID symptoms. It took me about six months to really kick it.
So, I think I just had a lot to say, and a lot went on in my life, good and bad. And I have the ability to share my feelings and my stories through music. I’ve been lucky – there’s a little bit of luck involved. Luck and opportunity. And taking the initiative to write and fight through the negative thoughts and energies and obstacles that stop people.
I think that’s the best way I can explain this run I’ve been on.
Rick: Let’s talk about you and Mike a little bit. Obviously, you are very close, so the Blood Brothers collaboration makes all the sense in the world. But when you first tossed this idea around, did you have any sense that it would become what it has? You’ve got a studio album, you’ve got a live album, you’ve been killing it on tour. I mean, was this all part of the gameplan?
Albert: It’s something I had always envisioned us doing. When Mike helped get me the deal with Ruf Records, it was my dream to have something like this happen. Either Mike and me, or Mike and me and Samantha Fish, who was with Ruf too. We’re all best of friends. When my daughter found me, Mike was the first person I told, and Samantha was the second.
I mentioned that I had COVID in 2021. I was really down in the dumps and depressed and I couldn’t get out of bed. I had pins and needles in my hands, and my feet, and I didn’t know what was wrong. Then near the tail end of it, Mike said, ‘Hey, man, I got this thing for you, me and Joanna Conner.’ It was a three-day mini tour in the Midwest – a Chuck Berry tribute in Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis.
And so, I dragged my butt out of bed, and it was great. We weren’t called Blood Brothers yet, but from that tour, we garnered a little bit of attention.
When Walter Trout had to cancel out of his slot on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, they hired Mike and Joanna and me to replace him. And that went over incredibly well.
Out of all this, Mike calls me and says he’s got this all worked out, and this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to do this tour together. We’re gonna have both bands playing together at the same time, and we’re going to call it Blood Brothers. And we’re going to make an album, and we’re going to tour next year. And I said, okay, boss, whatever you want to do, let’s do it.
You know, I always equate my relationship with Mike to the Rat Pack. Mike is Frank Sinatra, and I’m Dean Martin. Mike is the proactive guy always doing everything, telling everybody where the party is, and what’s happening. And I’m just sitting, with my martini, saying just tell me where we’re going.
So that’s what happened. I let Mike deal with all the particulars because that’s what he’s made for. And I’m a soldier for him. So that’s how it started.
Rick: So now you really have two careers going, right? You have your Castiglia solo career, which is going lights out. And you have your Blood Brothers career, which is off to a fast start. I’m not going to ask you if you prefer one over the other, because I don’t think that would be a fair question. But I will ask you if there are things about each one that you like more than you do about the other.
Albert: I think it’s a fair question to ask. I love both of them. And the way we’re handling and balancing them is the right way to do it. It’s easy to get these kinds of special projects made, but they often don’t succeed because when they get really good and pick up steam, they tend to wear it into the ground and not take a break from it.
Mike told me in the beginning that we’re gonna make an album, and then tour with this project for a year. Then we’re gonna give it a year off, do our own things for a year, and then go back and revisit it again next year. It really made me appreciate both projects.
We were actually on the road with the Blood Brothers for two years, because we toured before we put out the Blood Brothers album. It’s taken up a lot of our time, and it made me appreciate my band. Now this year, I’m going to play all year with my band. By the end of this year, I’ll be longing to do the Blood Brothers thing the following year. So, it really made me appreciate both. I love both projects equally. And that’s not a milk toast answer. It really is true.
Rick: Your last solo album was in 2022, so I’m assuming there could be some new material coming sometime in the not-too-distant future?
Albert: I just went into the studio a few weeks ago – Greaseland Studios in California – and recorded an album that will be out in June. It’s gonna be great because I wrote a little bit of original material, but because I was on the road with Zito for the last two years, it was really tough to find a concept for the album. So, Mike, in his infinite wisdom, suggested that we make a special guest album, and get our friends to play on it. So, we’re gonna reach out to some very talented people that I’m not at liberty to mention at this point. But I will say this, my daughter is going to be on one of the tracks which is what really matters to me. I’ll find out how many friends I have in this business who will accept and play with me. But my daughter is not turning me down.
Rick: I want to talk about your onstage persona, and to kick that conversation off I want to share with you a quote from the review I did of your 2022 show here in Denver. I said that you are ‘ultra-animated, sometimes nearly manic. He’s a photographer’s dream, dancing, prancing and mugging the whole show long’. When you were growing up, were you the class clown and the life of the party? Or if not, where did this come from?
Albert: That’s not what I’ve been told… I’ve been told that I’m a photographer’s nightmare. I won’t name names, but there are a handful of photographers that have flat out told me that I am a nightmare, that it is hard for them to get a good shot of me because of the faces I make. The uncontrollable faces I make, and it’s hard for them. So, your comment means a lot to me. Thank you.
Growing up, I was a very shy kid. I tried to make friends and I had a hard time doing it. I was just one of those misunderstood kids that didn’t have a lot of friends. I was really quiet. Music helped make me a little more outgoing. But I spent a lot of my early years just playing guitar and not really engaging with the crowd.
And then I got the job with Junior Wells, in 1997. And every night for nine months, I got to see this man become totally vulnerable, and open himself up to his audiences. He just had this ability to connect with an audience. I mean, I’d seen it on TV, and I’d seen it at concerts, but to actually be on stage with someone doing it was quite an education. He opened his heart and his soul to people. I think that’s really where I got it from.
It really was a revelation. If you want people to respond to what you’re doing, you need to open yourself up. It took me about 10 years of playing live to understand that.
Playing music and playing for people, I’m just gonna have a good time and enjoy myself. I don’t take my life for granted at all. I know I could be doing something worse, so I just have a good time with it. It’s the best job I have ever had. It’s not really a job if you love it. It’s one of the best parts of me, and I embrace it.
Castiglia and his band (drummer Ephraim Lowell and bass player Cliff Moore) will be at Denver’s Oriental Theater on Sunday, January 28. I’m telling you, people, that if you are a fan of blues rock at all, you do not want to miss this show.
Opening for Castiglia will be local favorite The Delta Sonics.
Tickets are available at https://tickets.holdmyticket.com/orientaltheater.
Story by Rick Witt
Photos by Rick Witt (unless otherwise noted)
