Exploring Albert Castiglia’s Living the Music
So yesterday was a blues day. I started the day by listening to the latest release by Albert Castiglia (pronounced “ka-STEEL-ya”) Living the Dream. The album was released back in June. I think that it’s been on the Roots Music Blues Chart since it’s release. This week the album is at 46 dropping down from 29! I first discovered Castiglia’s music back in 2010 when his album Keepin’ On was released, I immediately became a fan. What a great bluesman Albert is! Living the Dream is his third album on Blue Leaf Records and his fifth overall. I my humble opinion, he just keeps getting better and better!
Exploring James Buddy Rogers….
After Albert I listened to another artist whose latest release has been on the Roots Music Report Blues Chart James Buddy Rogers. The album is titled My Guitar is My Only Friend. Rogers hails from Vancouver, British Columbia and has been a professional musician since he was 11 years old. At 15 his band Texas Storm was being booked by Canada’s top agency for opening concert slots. From his website:
“My dad went to the liquor control board and got a license that he would take to bars so I could legally play there. I began playing shows sitting in with all the great blues guys around Vancouver back then. The ones that really stand out, who took me under their wing, so to speak were the late Muddy Fraser, Tom and Jack Lavin, Jim Byrnes and Russell Jackson. These guys always invited me out to play with them and open for them.” Rogers recalls.
By the time he was 19 years old, Rogers was opening for the likes of Canned Heat, Sam Taylor, The Holmes Brothers, Elvin Bishop, Kenny Neal, Katie Webster and others. My Guitar’s My Only Friend was produced by Tom Lavin of Powder Blues fame and features 10 songs written by Lavin and Rogers. I was really impressed by Rogers’ guitar playing Rogers lists Johnny Watson, Jimmie Vaughan and the three Kings as his guitar influences and I think he does them proud!! Here’s what B.B. King’s drummer says about – “This man can really play the Blues” and B.B. himself says “Finally a white boy that plays guitar like a black one”
Since we went “Into the Night” last night with Albert Castiglia, let’s go tonight with the title track from James Buddy Rogers’ album “My Guitar is My Only Friend”