The three back-to-back concerts at Monterey’s Golden State Theatre this week each have something distinctively interesting about them.
Tommy Castro & the Painkillers Thursday with Santa Cruz artist Anthony Arya opening feels like a homecoming for the San Jose-born, San Francisco-based blues/soul/rock artist. True, he’s not from Monterey, but he played on the Central Coast regularly and I for one considered him one of the staples of the music scene locally for most of the ’90s through the aughts (2000 – 2010).
Another California-based band Dawes came to my attention through the concerts that promoter Britt Govea (FolkYeah!) brought to Big Sur. The first time was under the Hipnic banner a weekend long music festival held in the Fernwood Resort’s campground, produced in collaboration with California-based band the Mother Hips. I enjoyed the group during its career ascension and became a fan, catching them whenever I could. The group fairly recently lost half its members. The two founding brothers, Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, remain and are teaming up with the band Lucius for An Evening with Dawes & Lucius on their Tag Team Tour Friday. Both bands will join together as one to perform a collection of each other’s songs.
Saturday is a trip way way back in the Way Back Machine with two members of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey. Not to take away from what will surely be a great show for those who knew and loved them back in the ’60s and beyond, but without Mary Travers, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 72, there’s a big hole where she once was. Although one can’t blame the two remaining members for wanting to get out and carry on the legacy of all three with a show filled with songs that anyone of any age most likely will have heard somewhere along the line. Often the duo asks the audience to sing the parts where Travers normally would be.
In regards to Castro, 68, he’s still touring the world like he has for most of his solo career, which he launched in 1994 after years performing with Bay Area bands Nitecry and The Dynatones. After cutting his teeth as guitarist and vocalist in these bands he formed his own group and released his first self-produced album “No Foolin.’” That same year he won for the first time as Best Club Band in the Bay Area Music Awards. He won a lot of those along with multiple Bammies in 1997 for Outstanding Blues Musician and Outstanding Blues Album, for the Blind Pig Records release “Exception to the Rule.” Since his debut recording he’s released 16 full length albums, the last seven for Alligator Records. Castro recently won the prestigious and coveted 2023 Blues Music Award for B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year Award for the second straight year. This is Castro’s 10th Blues Music Award, and the fourth time he’s been named Entertainer Of The Year.
Those were the years we would see him at the old Doc Ricketts Saloon on Cannery Row. For those around the music scene in the ’80s and ’90s, you know how fortunate we were to get all sorts of great blues artists come to play not only at Doc’s, but the Monterey Bay Blues Festival and the Santa Cruz Blues Festival. Doc’s is long gone and Monterey Bay Blues Festival ended in 2011 and the Santa Cruz Blues Festival ended, or shifted its emphasis to a broader based musical palate to include Americana/Country music in 2015. And that only lasted a couple years before the promoters bowed out of presenting any festival at the Aptos Village Park because of looming changes to the landscape. Castro performed numerous times at those festivals where blues royalty came to town, that is until all the original masters died off and the delivery of music to fans changed with the advent of the Internet.
Ah, the memories. But Castro is alive and kicking and he returns with music from his most recent recording on Alligator Records, the 2021-released “Tommy Castro Presents: A Bluesman Came To Town.” The 13 songs on this album are classic Castro, filled with bluesy, stinging guitar work, gritty at times and soulful at others vocals, and stories that touch you deep down in your gut. If you’ve been missing the blues being performed live around here, you just have to get out Thursday night to the State for this show. What’s more you’ll get a strong dose of good ol’ rock ’n’ roll, jump blues, and blue-eyed soul.
“The hardest thing to do,” said internationally beloved soul-blues rocker Castro, “is be yourself, take some chances and bring your fans along with you.”
“A Bluesman Came To Town” is a roots music odyssey encapsulated in a concept album that tells the timeless story of a blues guitarist who goes out on the road seeking fame and fortune, only to find what he’s left behind is the treasure he’s been looking for. While it is not autobiographical, Castro said he’s drawn on his own experiences as well as those of his comrades in arms, the road warriors who never give up on their dreams.
In 2022, Castro took home Blues Music Awards for Album of the Year for this recording and Blues Band of the Year for Tommy Castro & The Painkillers.
One thing that is clear about Castro is that he’s a consummate showman, putting on a concert filled with drama and good vibes. He’s the real deal, and he’s our peerless California bluesman.
Welcome back Tommy! Doors open Thursday at 6:30 p.m., showtime is 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $27.50 to $52.50 plus additional fees, available online at www.goldenstate.theatre.com. Call (831) 649-1070 for more information.
On to Dawes and Lucius as one concert Friday night. Dawes comes out of Los Angeles, formed by brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith originally as Simon Dawes, and later retooled as just Dawes. Known for their acoustic style and rich vocal harmonies, drawn from the influences of the Laurel Canyon Sound (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell) and as the romanticized Americana of The Band, the group has built a loyal following with their vintage-influenced aesthetic.
The group is centered around the primary songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist Taylor within a fairly solid quartet lineup for awhile, Griffin on drums, until devolving down to the two brothers currently. Pianist/backing vocalist Lee Pardini left in December and bassist Wylie Gelber, a founding member since 2009, gone in February last year. Trevor Menear, rhythm and lead guitar, still goes out on tour with the band on occasion. The song “When My Time Comes” was the breakout single off the band’s debut album in 2009, “North Hills,” recorded in Laurel Canyon, produced by Jonathan Wilson in a live setting to analog tape. Rolling Stone magazine called it “authentically vintage.” They’ve released a total of eight studio albums, the latest released in 2022, “Misadventures of Doomscroller,” a more exploratory tome that augments their existential lyricism with forays into jazzy soft rock, a little like Steely Dan.
Indie pop band Lucius features two women lead singers, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, who wear matching hairstyles and outfits to visually complement their serpentine harmonies. The two met as voice majors at Berklee College of Music, debuting their brand of torch folk-rock and urban indie pop in 2013 on “Wildewoman.” The two have sung on a couple of Dawes’ records and spent many summers at the Newport Folk Festival with the brothers.
“It was such a blast singing on each other’s tunes and collaborating on some covers that we talked about bringing the concept on the road,” Wolfe said in the Vail Daily this past week.
After extensive rehearsals, the two bands gelled quickly, Taylor Goldsmith said.
“Between all of us, there were lots of singers, so our main priority was showcasing harmonies,” he said. “After that, we just wanted to be representative of each other’s catalogs and put together a show old fans and new fans would dig, considering that each night will involve a lot of fans only knowing one of the two artists up on stage.”
So that’s it in a nutshell, the two bands gelling together to support one another on stage for their Tag Team Tour, Friday, doors 7 p.m., concert 8 p.m. Tickets range from $35-$90 plus additional fees.
Peter Yarrow, 85, and Paul Stookey, 86, appear Saturday night to sing the songs that made them enormously successful in the early and mid-1960s, with their debut album topping the charts and helping to popularize the folk music revival. The trio was created by manager Albert Grossman in 1961, who booked them into the New York City coffee house/nightclub The Bitter End and the rest is history. Not to trivialize their tremendous contribution to music, but for those interested in their long and storied career, please take a minute to check out their website at www.peterpaulandmary.com. Here’s just a short list of the many songs they’re known for, most written by other songwriters such as Bob Dylan, John Denver, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot among others. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,” “Puff (The Magic Dragon), “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “If I Had A Hammer,” “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” “This Land is Your Land,” and on and on.
Doors open at 7 p.m. and showtime is 8 p.m., tickets range from $39.50-$99.50 plus fees.
