Nov 25, 2017

RhoDeo 1747 Grooves

Hello,

Todays Artists  are the renowned horn-driven funk outfit Tower of Power have been issuing albums and touring the world steadily since the early '70s, in addition to backing up countless other musicians. The group's leader since the beginning has always been tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo, who was born in Detroit but opted to pursue his musical dreams in Oakland, California. They played regularly in the Bay Area throughout the late '60s, as their lineup often swelled up to ten members, including such other mainstays as Greg Adams on trumpet and vocals, Lenny Pickett on sax, and Rocco Prestia on bass. ........ N'joy

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In the summer of 1968, tenor saxophonist/vocalist Emilio Castillo met Stephen "Doc" Kupka, who played baritone sax. Castillo had played in several bands, but Castillo's father told his son to "hire that guy" after a home audition. Within months the group, then known as The Motowns, began playing various gigs around Oakland and Berkeley, their soul sound relating to both minority and rebellious listeners. Castillo wanted to play Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, but he realized he would never get in with a name like The Motowns. The band agreed on Tower of Power and the name stuck.

By 1970, the now renamed Tower of Power—now including trumpet/arranger Greg Adams, first trumpet Mic Gillette, first saxophone Skip Mesquite, Francis "Rocco" Prestia on bass, Willie Fulton on guitar, and drummer David Garibaldi—signed a recording contract with Bill Graham's San Francisco Records and released their first album, East Bay Grease. Rufus Miller performed most of the lead vocals on this debut album. The group was first introduced to the San Francisco Bay area by radio station KSAN, which played a variety of artists such as Cold Blood, Eric Mercury and Marvin Gaye. The single "Sparkling in the Sand" received airplay on the Bay Area soul station KDIA.

Augmented by percussionist/conga/bongo player Brent Byars, Tower of Power was released from their San Francisco label contract and moved to Warner Bros. Records. With Rick Stevens now replacing Rufus Miller as lead singer, 1972's Bump City gave the band their first national exposure. This album included the hit single "You're Still a Young Man", which peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Stevens' pinnacle vocal performance before leaving the band.

Tower of Power, released in the spring of 1973, was the third album for the band. It featured Lenny Williams on lead vocals and Lenny Pickett on lead tenor saxophone. Bruce Conte replaced guitarist Willie Fulton and keyboardist Chester Thompson also joined the band during the recording of the album. This was the group's most successful album. It peaked at #15 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart and was RIAA certified as a gold record (for sales in excess of 500,000 copies). The album also spawned their most-successful single "So Very Hard to Go". Although the single peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, it landed in the Top 10 on the surveys of many West Coast Top 40 radio stations, hitting #1 on many of them.

1974's Back to Oakland spawned another hit, "Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream)", that reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Time Will Tell", which charted at #69. The funk-jazz classic instrumental "Squib Cakes" also came from this album. On Urban Renewal (1974), the band moved more toward funk than soul; however, they continued recording ballads as well. Williams left the band in late 1974, and was replaced as vocalist by Hubert Tubbs. While Tower of Power remained a must-see live act, as disco became the new trend in R&B the group's original funk-laden style fell out of favor, and disco-oriented albums like 1978's We Came to Play and 1979's Back on the Streets didn't please critics or fans, and the band would go nine years without releasing an album.

Despite it all, Tower of Power -- in particular their horn section -- remained a much in-demand backing group for some of pop/rock's biggest names, including Elton John, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis, Little Feat, David Sanborn, Michelle Shocked, Paula Abdul, Aaron Neville, Aerosmith, Public Image Ltd., and many others. In 1988, Tower of Power returned to the studio for the album Power, and in 1991 they signed with Epic Records, where they released five albums by the end of the decade.

Into the new millennium, Tower of Power kept up their reputation as a strong live band, maintaining a steady touring schedule, and in 2009 they launched their own TOP Records label with The Great American Soulbook, in which they covered a dozen soul and R&B classics in the trademark Tower of Power style. In 2007, Tower of Power celebrated their fourth decade together with a special concert at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, and a year later the show was issued in a special CD/DVD package, simply titled 40th Anniversary. In 2013, Tower of Power took a look back with the release of Hipper Than Hip: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, which documented a live radio broadcast from 1974. The bandmembers also announced they would be touring in 2013 and 2014 with two other iconic acts from Northern California, Journey and the Steve Miller Band.

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Tower of Power was very much in its prime in 1974, when the Bay Area outfit tore up the soul charts with the outstanding Urban Renewal. Lenny Williams, a passionate, wailing, gospel-influenced dynamo of a singer, had joined Tower the previous year, and he worked out remarkably well; whether digging into tough funk or romantic ballads, Williams is in top form. Funk doesn't get much more invigorating than horn-driven gems like "Maybe It'll Rub Off," "Give Me the Proof" and "Only So Much Oil in the Ground" (a commentary on the mid-'70s energy crisis), and soul ballads don't get much richer than "Willing to Learn" and "I Won't Leave Unless You Want Me To." Tower (an influence on everyone from L.T.D. to the Average White Band) recorded a number of essential albums in the '70s, and Urban Renewal is at the top of the list.



Tower Of Power - Urban Renewal      (flac  221mb)

01 Only So Much Oil In The Ground 3:46
02 Come Back, Baby 3:21
03 It's Not The Crime 1:45
04 I Won't Leave Unless You Want Me To 3:28
05 Maybe It'll Rub Off 3:15
06 (To Say The Least) You're The Most 2:28
07 Willing To Learn 4:35
08 Give Me The Proof 2:35
09 It Can Never Be The Same 4:43
10 I Believe In Myself 2:00
11 Walkin' Up Hip Street 5:30

Tower Of Power - Urban Renewal  (ogg  85mb)

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In the Slot came off a four-year string of classic singles and albums. As Bump City era lead singer Rick Stevens exited, the phenomenal Lenny Williams replaced him. With Williams, Tower of Power became a hit-making machine as albums like Back to Oakland and Urban Renewal became R&B standards. In the Slot marks the first album of vocalist Hubert Tubbs. he possessed a throaty more muscular voice a few shades lower than his predecessor. While it was serviceable, Tubbs' voice didn't have the same grace and agility as Williams'. On the rollicking "Just Enough and Too Much" the difference is slight and the track is one of the band's most potent tracks. The ballads were where the contrast is most striking. "As Surely As I Stand Here" and the "The Soul of a Child" display not only a drop off in lyrical quality, but also the clearest indication that the band did indeed miss Williams' skill at making even bromides ring. Oddly enough, the great and too brief B-side "Stroke '75" wasn't included here. After many failed attempts, band and singer do end up on the same page. On "Drop It in the Slot" and "On the Serious Side" the groups' trademark rhythm section and the horns come on stronger and match Tubbs' more volatile style. This effort in effect put an end to the string of "classic" albums from the group. In The Slot, despite its enviable firepower, finds the band missing Lenny Williams' skill at putting all of the pieces together.



 Tower Of Power - In The Slot      (flac 221mb)

01 Just Enough And Too Much 3:25
02 Treat Me Like Your Man 3:08
03 If I Play My Cards Right 3:12
04 As Surely As I Stand Here 5:15
05 Fanfare: Matanuska 0:16
06 On The Serious Side 2:51
07 Ebony Jam 6:44
08 You're So Wonderful, So Marvelous 3:51
09 Vuela Por Noche 1:34
10 Essence Of Innocence 0:36
11 The Soul Of A Child 4:58
12 Drop It In The Slot 3:13

Tower Of Power - In The Slot  (ogg  87mb )

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Edward McGee turned in mostly above-average performances on their first post-Lenny Williams release, but it was the beginning of the end for the group. With funk losing its foothold among R&B audiences, they couldn't keep it together. Hearing this on compact disc (and it's not one of Columbia's better mastering jobs) reveals that McGee was an energetic, exuberant vocalist who held his own on uptempo tunes like "You Ought To Be Havin' Fun" and the title song, but lacked Williams' range or tonal quality on ballads. The group always had a weakness for ponderous message cuts, and "Can't Stand To See The Slaughter" and "While We Went To The Moon" were well-intentioned but clumsy tracks. This was almost The Tower of Power's swan song.



Tower Of Power - Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now   (flac 229mb)

01 Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now 3:53
02 By Your Side 4:29
03 Make Someone Happy 2:45
04 Doin' Alright 4:46
05 Because I Think The World Of You 2:58
06 You Ought To Be Havin' Fun 3:05
07 Can't Stand To See The Slaughter 2:47
08 It's So Nice 5:39
09 Deal With It 3:20
10 While We Went To The Moon 4:00

. Tower Of Power - Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now  (ogg  86mb)

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The band's final album for Warner Bros. before it decamped to Columbia, the absolutely stunning 1975 Live and in Living Color ensured that Tower of Power left in a blaze of glory. Recorded at Sacramento Memorial Auditorium and Cerritos College, the group brought what remains one of the era's finest live albums to glorious fruition. Leaving behind the dismal soul of its previous In the Slot, the band fell back on its two great strengths -- classy live performance and unerring funk. With every ounce of the group's full energy packed into the grooves and a little more added for emphasis, Live squeezes out five tracks of epic proportions. Reaching back to its debut LP, East Bay Grease, Tower of Power jammed on a majestic 23-minute rendition of "Knock Yourself Out" and the sleepy classic "Sparkling in the Sand," before continuing its sonic domination across two songs pulled from Bump City. "Down to the Nightclub (Bump City)" is effusive, while "You're Still a Young Man" is an absolutely outstanding performance of one of TOP's finest songs -- and judging by the audience enthusiasm, it packed as much power in 1976 as it did in 1972 (and indeed, still does today). Courageously, only one track, "What Is Hip?," emerges from the group's most successful era, but with its rock riffing slices and roiling organ solo, you really don't need anything else -- it stands well as a lone representative of what many hail as TOP's finest hour. There's nothing to fault here except, possibly, the decision to release a mere single disc at a time when live double albums were becoming de rigueur, a move guaranteed to leave listeners crying for more. But perhaps that was the intent all along -- too little is always sweeter than too much.



Tower Of Power - Live And In Living Color   (flac 259mb)

01 Down To The Nightclub (Bump City) 2:26
02 You're Still A Young Man 5:12
03 What Is Hip? 6:25
04 Sparkling In The Sand 8:05
05 Knock Yourself Out 23:40

.Tower Of Power - Live And In Living Color  (ogg  102mb)

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