Sellersville Theater to host Tommy Castro and a Hot Blues Revue

After performing onstage with legends B.B. King and Carlos Santana, Tommy Castro is bringing a collaborative blues show to the Sellersville Theater 1894 (ST94). 

Castro, his band and three other blues performers come to the theater on Jan. 27 as part of its Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue tour. 

He initiated the Revue two years ago while he was performing on the well-known Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, a cruise during which about 25 blues groups and singers perform throughout the day for a week straight. 

Castro, who was boarding a plane to get on the January cruise when he spoke with Ticket last weekend, said he was disappointed last year that the Blues Cruise happened so infrequently. 

"I thought, 'It's too bad this only happens once a year, just for a week, in the middle of the ocean,'" Castro said. 

The best part of the trip, he said, was the late-night jam sessions. 

All day long, the entertainers would perform their own music at different times, but around 1:30 in the morning, any musicians interested would join together on the stage and improvise. 

"Amazing things can happen," Castro said, referring to jam sessions where musicians who might or might not have ever played together improvise onstage without hesitation. 

It was this environment - the individual performances as well as the collaborative jam sessions - that Castro wanted to capture and take off the boat with him when the cruise was over. So he started asking around the cruise, seeking out musicians who would be interested in a possible tour after the cruise was over. 

"You have to really be able to take a chance ... if you're getting up to jam in front of an audience," he said. "Any moment could be a train wreck." 

Yet he found a number of musicians and bands interested in touring and so the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue was born into its first year. 

This year, the same lineup as last year's tour joins Castro and his band onstage at ST94. 

Magic Dick is known best for his harmonica playing with the J. Geils Band, which he helped found in the '60s. The group, which has released 14 albums, tours extensively, headlining festivals and stadiums. Magic Dick also released two albums with his own group, Blues Time. 

Another performer on the tour is Ronnie Baker Brooks, the son of bluesman Lonnie Brooks. Ronnie has released three albums of his own, attracting young listeners with his "blistering" guitar work. 

The only female on the tour, Deanna Bogart brings her self-described "Blusion" to the stage as a pianist, saxophonist and songwriter/singer. She has been the head of her own band since the 1980s and has shared the stage with legends such as Ray Charles and James Brown, as well as They Might Be Giants and Brian Setzer. She has released seven CDs of her own and was included in a number of compilations - ranging from jazz to western swing to rock. 

As for Castro, a San Jose, Cal. native and local legend, he has been playing guitar since he was 10 years old, though it wasn't until he was older that he considered transforming performing into a career. 

"It didn't dawn on me that I could make music as a career," he said. "I knew I wouldn't fancy working for other people," he said, so he tried his hand at running his own business in his 20s while having a band on the side. Eventually, he decided to take a stab at performing, and never looked back. 

"It was what I did for enjoyment," Castro said in his interview last week. "When I finally realized I could do it [as a career], it was a surprise. It was the only thing I ever loved, so I thought that I needed to give music a little more thought." 

Castro has been at it for years now. having His band, formed in 1991, was chosen to be the house band for NBC's "Comedy Showcase" for three seasons. 

His personal crowning moment was when he was invited to play onstage with his idol, B.B. King, on the legends tours in 2001 and 2002. 

You would assume, with all this achievement, that there would be little more to conquer. But the Revue is Castro's recent pride, and it is obvious when talking to him that he loves it as much as he might his first album. 

He said projects like this allow him to keep his career "fresh." 

Adding to the freshness is the album of performances from last year's Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue along the West Coast. 

The album, called "Command Performance," includes rehearsed and improvised jam sessions by the entire Revue lineup. Among the guest performers are Marcia Ball, a Louisiana pianist, and harmonica player Curtis Salgado, both of whom performed with Castro and the others during the Blues Cruise. 

This year the same lineup takes the stage, including Sellersville, from just Jan. 22 to Feb. 9. Each show consists of 30 minutes of music from each performer and concludes with a jam session after a brief meet-the-musicians break. 

"Our styles are all different, but we work well together," Castro said of the Revue's performers. 

"We have a good jam spirit," he added, which is what he was looking for when putting the Revue together. 

To witness the "good jam spirit," buy tickets for the Sellersville Theater show online at www.st94.com or call 215-257-5808. 

 If you go 
 Tommy Castro Band 
 & "The Legendary 
 Rhythm & Blues Revue" 
 will take the stage 
 of Sellersville Theater 1984, 
 Main St. & Temple Ave., 
 Sellersville, PA 18960, 
 Sunday, Jan. 27, 7:30 p.m. 
 Tickets: $25. 
 Info: 215-257-5808 or 
 www.st94.com.