The San Luis Obispo Blues Society presents Tommy Castro and the Painkillers on Saturday, January 11 at 7:30 pm at the SLO Vets Hall (801 Grand Avenue). The Jump Jax will be opening the show. Tickets are $20 for Blues Society members and $25 for the general public. Tickets are sold at the door, and may also be purchased at Boo Boo Records and Cheap Thrills in San Luis Obispo, and Paradise Records and Trading Post in Santa Maria, or online at My805tix. Doors open at 7:00pm, music starts at 7:30. 21 and over please.
TOMMY CASTRO AND THE PAINKILLERS
Award-winning guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Tommy Castro is famed for his signature brand of tough, rocking rhythm and blues, thrilling fans around the world with his incendiary live performances. Born in San Jose, Tommy Castro first picked up a guitar at age 10. He came under the spell of Eric Clapton, Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield and other blues rock players early on. Later, Tommy moved forward, falling in love with the blues guitar work of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Elmore James. By his late 20s he was playing in a variety of San Francisco-area blues and soul bands.He formed The Tommy Castro Band in 1991 and soon won Bay Area Music Awards for Best Club Band.
Over the course of his career, Tommy Castro has released fifteen critically acclaimed CDs for Blind Pig, Telarc and Alligator Records; and began relentless touring, continuing to this day. His 2009 Hard Believer album helped him win four 2010 Blues Music Awards including Entertainer of The Year Award (for the second time). In 2011, he released Tommy Castro Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue–Live! The album is a fiery collection of the highlights from live performances anchored by Castro and an all-star collection of nationally recognized blues musicians.
After years of playing guitar-driven blues and R&B backed by a tight horn section, Castro introduced The Painkillers in 2012, creating a lean, mean four-piece lineup. The Painkillers include bassist Randy McDonald, keyboardist Michael Emerson, and drummer Bowen Brown. Castro views the harder-edged sound of the Painkillers as a natural extension of the music he’s been making since he was a teenager. “The Painkillers really get me back to my roots. It feels to me a lot more like it did when I first started playing with my friends as a kid.” In 2014’s The Devil You Know (Alligator), Castro and the Painkillers stripped his music down to its raw essence. The album received a 2014 Blues Blast Music Award for Rock Blues Album of the Year. Method To My Madness (Alligator, 2015), the second release from the Painkillers, created a more relaxed, comfortable sound, with a strong undercurrent of Memphis soul. In Stompin’ Ground (Alligator, 2017), Castro both looks back with autobiographical originals and cover songs that inspired him.
With the group seemingly hitting new heights with every performance, Castro knew the time was right to answer his fans’ demands for a live album. Killin’ It–Live captures the band at the peak of their creative and improvisational powers. The album includes eight Castro originals spanning his entire career and two covers, each showing a slightly different side of his multifaceted musical personality. From fan favorites She Wanted To Give It To Me and Make It Back To Memphis to newer classics like Lose Lose and Two Hearts to Taj Mahal’s arrangement of Sleepy John Estes’ Leaving Trunk, Killin’ It–Live is a nonstop, spirited mix of blues, rock and soul, with rollicking, hypnotic grooves fueled by Castro’s animated, fervent vocals.
THE JUMP JAX
The Jump Jax are a lively quartet that focus on jumpin’ swing-jazz classics from such masters as Louis Jordan, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian and Cab Calloway as well as a mixture of Soul, Blues, Rockabilly and R&B. The lineup features Don Jacobsen on saxophones, Michael Smothers on drums and vocals, Dave Block on bass and vocals, and of course Ted Waterhouse on guitars and vocals. The Jump Jax are just the band to get the joint jumpin’!
The Blues Society runs on volunteers to produce and staff our concerts. At the shows, volunteers set up, sell tickets and drinks, or put the furniture away after the show. Volunteers get free admission to the show and two drink tickets. If you have extra time and energy to contribute, please call their volunteer line (805) 541-7930 or email them at [email protected].