Tower of Power (Now)
Yes, we have had a great run, for Forty-Four years (Forty Four this month) Tower of Power has been ours. The band had some major commercial success in the mid 70’s, but since then, its been just the hard core fans that follow the band. From the US, to Europe, and Japan, Tower has a great core of die hard fans. Tower has and currently maintains a very aggressive touring schedule, to the point that you often hear people say that such and such band is the hardest touring band, well we know that Tower really is the hardest touring band in the world.
Tower Of Power (Then)
What I have come to appreciate is the intimacy of most of the venues the band plays in, most being 400-1500 seats, places where at the end of the show, you can say Hi to members of the band, and sometime hang out with them for a bit. Because of this, I have personally lost count of the number of times since 1973 that I have seen Tower Of Power, as these venues are intimate and affordable. One thing I can tell you is that I always see faces at each venue that I have seen before. Over the years, many of those folks have become friends, again because the closeness of the Tower Of Power family.
Over the Forty-Four years band members have come and gone. Many have gone on to great solo careers like Greg Adams, Richard Elliott, and Euge Grove (Steve Grove) have had great Smooth Jazz careers. Lenny Pickett has been the Musical Director of the Saturday Night Live Band for almost two decades. Many other former members have had great careers as sidemen for other artists, or as studio musicians.
Others who have known about our secret, are musicians themselves. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Prince, and Sting have one time or another remarked highly of the band. Sting himself long before joining the Police was in a Tower Of Power cover band.
What makes Tower unique is that it has two driving forces. One is of course the horn section, which is about as tight a sound as five pieces can get. Led by Emilio Castillo and Stephen “Doc” Kupka the horn section has appeared on hundreds of recording over the years (check out the discography here www.towerofpower.com/discography/hornsection/).
The second force is the Rhythm Section (whose current line-up may be the best ever) led by legends David Garibaldi (drums) and Francis Rocco Prestia (bass). Why do I say legends, just ask professional drummers and base bass players, they will tell you.
Tower has also been blessed to have some very good singers over the years to round out their sound.
So why is the secret out. Well it really started a couple of years ago when Tower got a new management team. The band started playing larger venues, and started getting some TV show appearances. Now this past July, opened a few shows for the Dave Mathews band which exposed the band to thousands of fans. Side note: Roger Smith (keyboards for Tower) will be appearing on next Dave Matthews CD, playing on a few tunes (CD will be out in September I believe). And now the thing that will send Tower over the top, as far as exposure is concerned, is a little thing called AXS.tv. Premiering this Sunday at 8PM Eastern 5PM on the West Coast and running several more times AXS.tv will be airing “The Tower of Power 40th Anniversary Concert at the Fillmore“. AXS.tv can be found at many major cable operators, and on Direct TV and Dish Network. For more on this show at AXS.tv click here: www.axs.tv/blogs/axs-tv-concerts-tower-of-power-40th-anniversary-concert-at-the-fillmore/
So what’s the down side of this kind of exposure? Absolutely nothing. New fan base, bigger better venues, maybe even more money for the band. Sounds like a winner to me. Hey some of us might even meet some new people ourselves.
