The Tommy Castro Band

Poor Tommy Castro was born 40 years too late. He really should've been going to elementary school with folks like John Lee Hooker and Wilson Picket. That way he would've been in on that golden era of blues, when monsters like BB King and Buddy Guy were seemingly in every smoky, wrong-side-of-the tracks juke joint in America. Since he missed that boat, Castro did the next best thing -- he jams like Hooker and Picket, and with King and Guy.

Is it too early to start working on the Best of 2007 list?

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More About

• Poor Tommy Castro
• John Lee Hooker
• Wilson Picket
• Buddy Guy
• Blues Music

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Painkiller, Castro's latest release, is notable on two counts. First, it's some seriously good blues music. Second, Castro manages to capture what is very much a live medium and transfer that sound to CD with much more success than -- gasp! -- even Mr. King or Mr. Hooker have sometimes had (why do you think everyone does all those live albums?). With more than ten CDs under his belt, including 1999's Right as Rain, which readers of Blues Revue magazine voted one of the best 40 albums of all time, Castro knows his way around a studio. Thankfully. From Castro's own "I'm Not Broke" to Albert Collins's "A Good Fool Is Hard to Find," Painkillerrocks with a style both easy and hard-hitting. Pristine guitar work by Castro and guest Coco Montoya, full, brash sax sounds by Keith Crossan and authentic Wurlitzer work by guest Tony Stead make Painkiller a standout.

Unfortunately, Houston will have to wait a while for Castro himself to come through. His schedule during the next few months includes California, Denmark, England and Belgium, with a couple of stops in Las Vegas but nothing anywhere near Texas.