Different Shade

For a guy who plays the blues, Albert Castiglia www.albertcastiglia.com seems to be having way too much fun. Holding court onstage during a recent Friday night at Hooligan's Pub and Oyster Bar in Pinecrest, he and his back-up band run through a set that includes cuts from his debut disc, Burn, as well as a handful of retro rock standards by the Band and the Allman Brothers. It's an unexpected and offbeat cover of the Commodores' "Easy" ("That's why I'm sleazy ... anyone here from Wisconsin? ... Kind of cheesy") and the funky disco medley that follows, though, that show him giving a nod to his silly side.

Not to worry: A withering take on Bob Dylan's "Seven Days," a rocking version of the old standard "That's All Right Mama," and a string of searing blues riffs are proof positive that Castiglia hasn't sacrificed his edge or integrity. Bobbing incessantly, he wrings every last note, and then some, from a blistering solo before stepping back to the mike to sing in a world-weary moan. There's something in his authoritative presence that echoes Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winters, and Muddy Waters.

Clearly the crowd's enthralled. While a few folks venture onto the dance floor, Castiglia's grit-in-the-groove style manages to stop most in their tracks, gluing them to their seats, where they stare at him as if transfixed. "He has a charming presence," notes Ned Berndt, drummer with the bar band Flashback and a frequent sit-in with Castiglia and company, as he watches from the dance floor. "He connects with people. He knows how to move a crowd's energy."

Always the entertainer, Castiglia tosses in his trademark stage patter. "Fasten your funky seatbelts," he cautions before launching into an R&B medley consisting of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" and Sly and the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher." "Keep drinkin' what you're drinkin' and thinkin' what you're thinkin'," he advises as the set winds down. And then there's the signature sign-off: "I'm Albert Castiglia, from the blues capital of the world ... Coral Gables, Florida!"

That last comment elicits the most chuckles. After all, Coral Gables is as far from the Mississippi Delta and Chicago's downtown dives as a Porsche is from a pickup truck.

Born in New York City in 1969, Castiglia has lived in the City Beautiful since the age of five. He traces his interest in music to his father, a former doo-wop singer, and an uncle who taught him to play guitar when he was twelve. In junior high, he was turned on to Hendrix and Dylan, but it was a Muddy Waters album, Hard Again, that gave him his first real exposure to the blues. "His voice was so powerful, I ran under the bed," he recalls admiringly. "I was fourteen or fifteen, and that's when I decided I wanted to play the blues for a living. That one album changed my life."

By the time he was eighteen, Castiglia was playing in South Florida clubs while holding down a day job as a social service investigator for the state welfare office. "It was killing me," he confides. "I worked eight to ten hours, and then played until two in the morning." The rigorous routine lasted eight years until a fortuitous encounter at the now-defunct Back Room blues joint in Delray Beach on New Year's Eve, 1996. That was when Gloria Pierce, a friend of the evening's headliner, blues great Junior Wells, managed to snag him an invitation onstage. "I said to Junior, 'Let Albert sit in, you'll like him'," Pierce remembers. "Sure enough, he not only played well, he just fit in. I already knew that the relationship would last. Within a month or two, Junior had Albert on the road with him. Junior loved Albert."

"I had a lot to learn but I didn't realize it at the time. The road was a real learning experience," Castiglia says of the eight months he spent touring the U.S. and Europe with Wells, first as a fill-in, then as his full-time lead guitarist. He also witnessed the sleazier side of the blues circuit. "I saw some wild stuff," he says. "Lots of partying ... lots of pitfalls.... There were drugs like crazy, it was rampant. But I never got caught up in that."

Castiglia relocated to Chicago after Wells fell ill and passed away in 1998. He and the remnants of Wells's band spent the next three and a half years touring with Atlanta singer Sandra Hall, contributing to her 2001 album, Miss Riding Hood. Eventually he opted to move back to Miami and start a solo career.