{"id":1316526,"date":"2019-11-07T19:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/castro-ellis-bring-the-blues-to-ute-theater-stage\/"},"modified":"2019-11-07T19:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T02:24:00","slug":"castro-ellis-bring-the-blues-to-ute-theater-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/castro-ellis-bring-the-blues-to-ute-theater-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Castro, Ellis bring the blues to Ute Theater stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Tinsley Ellis, left, and Tommy Castro bring the blues to Rifle’s Ute Theater stage this Saturday night.<\/strong>
Provided<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Fans of blues guitar are in for a string-bending good time as two of the most popular blues players of the past three decades will land on Rifle\u2019s Ute Theater stage starting at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

Tommy Castro and Tinsley Ellis will each play a set with their own bands before coming together for a good old-fashioned, raise the roof jam session.<\/p>\n

The two blues men joined forces for a tour last year after Ellis recorded \u201cWinning Hand\u201d on Alligator Records, the same label on which Castro has recorded his past six albums.<\/p>\n

It is Ellis\u2019 third stint with Alligator after recording nine albums with them in the \u201990s and \u201900s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I tried the rest, and I came back to the best,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cThey\u2019re just great to work with, and I\u2019ve been with them off and on, mainly on, for over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro and Ellis had such a good time touring together in 2018, Castro said, that they decided to do it again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big fan of his, and he\u2019s a fan of mine,\u201d Castro said. \u201cAnd we get along really well as friends, and the bands get along really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were younger, half of what we were interested in was partying. Now that we\u2019re a little bit more mature, music is all we really have. So we go a little farther and deeper into our music and we appreciate being able to do what we love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellis said his set Saturday night with his own band will include songs from \u201cWinning Hand,\u201d a few songs off the 2005 album \u201cLive Highwayman,\u201d and even some unreleased songs off his album \u201cIce Cream In Hell,\u201d which is due out in January.<\/p>\n

Castro\u2019s set with his band, The Painkillers, will include many songs from their new 2019 release \u201cKillin It Live,\u201d a record he said represents \u201cwhat you get when you come to see a Tommy Castro and the Painkillers show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a really strong four-piece group right now, and I just wanted to be sure to capture what this band sounds like live,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Florida native Ellis and Northern California native Castro have different approaches to blues music that are informed by growing up in two distinctly different parts of the country.<\/p>\n

Ellis\u2019 brand of Southern blues-rock is heavily influenced by blues men like B.B. King and Freddie King.<\/p>\n

Through the years, Ellis has performed and recorded with various Allman Brothers members, and in fact, he played mentor to Derek Trucks in 1991, letting the young slide-guitarist sit in with his band.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was only 12 years old, and we were skeptical,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cHis dad (Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks) and I were old friends, so we let him get up there, and he was just so incredible that he ended up staying there the whole set, and we started touring together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro\u2019s brand of blues is more of a West Coast style, owing to his roots growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area during its fertile \u201960s music scene.<\/p>\n

We would see shows at the Fillmore and Winterland or any number of outdoor venues, everything from The Grateful Dead to Sly and the Family Stone,\u201d Castro said. \u201cBut my all-time favorite from the Bay was the Elvin Bishop Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were inspired by all this great blues, R&B, soul, rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, psychedelic music, folk music. It was a great time to be a teenager and I\u2019m sure that\u2019s why I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing today.\u201d<\/p>\n

jbear@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tinsley Ellis, left, and Tommy Castro bring the blues to Rifle’s Ute Theater stage this Saturday night.Provided Fans of blues guitar are in for a string-bending good time as two of the most popular blues players of the past three decades will land on Rifle\u2019s Ute Theater stage starting at 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Tommy Castro […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1316526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 05:41:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}