Tommy Castro brings his bluesy Painkillers to Hard Rock

Tommy Castro first picked up a guitar at age 10. He came under the spell of Eric Clapton, Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield and other blues rock players early on.

As he aged, Castro moved on to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Elmore James and singers like Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett and James Brown. By his late 20s he was playing in a variety of San Francisco-area blues and soul bands.

Castro joined Warner Brothers artists The Dynatones in the late 1980s. The much-loved band had a huge fan base and toured the U.S. constantly. He honed his chops with the group on the road for two years, performing live all across the country and sharing stages with artists such as Carla Thomas and Albert King.

He formed The Tommy Castro Band in 1991 and won the Bay Area Music Award for Best Club Band in both 1993 and 1994. With his local fan base quickly expanding, he released his debut album in 1996 on Blind Pig Records. The album won the 1997 Bay Area Music Award for Outstanding Blues Album, and Castro also took the award for Outstanding Blues Musician that same year. He began touring nationally, picking up new fans everywhere he went.

This Thursday, Castro stops at the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel in Sioux City for a performance with the Painkillers, his longtime bandmates. The show is certain to heat up the stage for the Anthem’s regular blues series.

In the mid-1990s The Tommy Castro Band served as the house band for three seasons on NBC Television’s Comedy Showcase (airing right after Saturday Night Live), bringing him in front of millions of viewers every week.

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, Castro released a series of critically acclaimed CDs for Blind Pig, Telarc and 33rd Street Records as well as one on his own Heart And Soul label, and began years of year-round, relentless touring, continuing to this day.

In 2001 and 2002, B.B. King asked Castro to open his summer concert tours. Castro received an open invitation to join the King Of The Blues on stage for the nightly finale.

Castro’s 2009 Alligator Records debut, Hard Believer, was anchored by his inspired vocal delivery, masterful horn arrangements and expert guitar work. On the strength of the album and subsequent touring, Castro won four 2010 Blues Music Awards including, for the second time in his career, the coveted B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year Award (the very highest award a blues performer can receive).

His song Hard Believer (co-written with Bonnie Hayes, who co-produced The Devil You Know), took first place in the blues category of the 2012 International Songwriting Competition.

In 2011, Castro released Tommy Castro Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue–Live! on Alligator. The album is a fiery collection of the highest highlights from a series of live performances anchored by Castro and an all-star collection of nationally recognized blues musicians.

Castro introduced The Painkillers live in 2012, creating a lean, mean four-piece lineup, with the drum chair now held by David Tucker. Fueled by Tommy’s voice and guitar plus bass, drums and keyboards, the band released the single “Greedy / That’s All I Got” later that year (both songs are included as bonus tracks on the new CD).

Greedy quickly became one of Castro’s most-requested songs. The Chicago Sun-Timescalls his music “fiery and soul-drenched.”

Castro views the harder-edged sound of The Painkillers as a natural extension of the music he’s been making since he was a teenager.

“The Painkillers really get me back to my roots. It feels to me a lot more like it did when I first started playing with my friends as a kid. Bands were always just three or four guys playing for the fun of it,” Castro recalls. Now, Tommy Castro And The Painkillers are pushing the music to another level.

See them Thursday, March 19, at 8 p.m. at the Hard Rock.