Topic: Sometimes What Appear as Failures are Really Successes in Disguise
by Deborah Ramirez on May 12, 2009 Sun Sentinel
"Sometimes what appear as failures are really successes in disguise."
Tommy Shannon
Double Trouble bassist
As the story goes, Stevie Ray Vaughan was nearly booed off the stage when he first performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1983. Most people that night weren't ready for his relentless guitar-playing style, except for two attendees in the audience: rock star David Bowie and singer-songwriter Jackson Brown. They later gave Vaughan the big break he needed.
No one booed Albert Castiglia last Thursday night at the Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn. The South Florida blues guitarist took the stage with his band after it was clear that he had not won the "Best Song of the Year" award. Instead, the prize went to blues artist Kenny Neal for his title track "Let Life Flow." Castiglia's disappointment didn't show -- on the contrary, he gave perhaps his finest performance, playing as if he had plugged himself,
instead of his guitar, into the electric system. Castiglia performed his
nominated song "Bad Year Blues" and "Big Toe," a blues song written by his buddy Graham Wood Drout, from the local band Iko-Iko.
In a show of solidarity, several South Florida fans (mostly from the South Florida Blues Society)who had traveled to Memphis for the awards show were at the front of the ballroom dancing and cheering him on. And I noticed that others in the room who perhaps had never heard him before got up to dance. All in all, Castiglia had an extraordinary opportunity to showcase his talent to a national
audience and he rose to the challenge.
Sometimes success does come in disguise.
I also want to mention Terry Hanck who opened the show with the other nominees in the "Best Instrumentalist-Horn" category. Hanck, a saxophone played who lives in Singer Island, had a very brief chance to show off his piercing tenor sax pitch. The award that night went to sax player Deanna Bogart. But Hanck's career is definitely in high gear, with his new CD "Always" and his increased visibility in the blues industry.
