Guilty of Love

by

Tommy Castro

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Guilty of Love is Castro's studio follow-up to his award winning "Right As Rain" which was released on Blind Pig Records in 1999. Castro's new release proves that it is often difficult to produce two consecutive award winners. With this release, Castro switches from Blind Pig to 33rd Street Records which is owned by Tower Records. The result is somewhat disappointing. One of the CD's highlights was to be the anticipated guest performance of the late, great, John Lee Hooker on the title track. However, in actuality, Hooker adds little more than a few spoken words to a song that is otherwise uninspiring and flat. Another song, "Blinded in the Face of Love" finds a misdirected Castro singing something akin to a country styled ballad, while the tune "Somebody to Love You" falls far short of the verson performed by Delbert McClinton on his exceptional 1999 release, "One of the Fortunate Few".

Overall, the production, sound quality and performance on this CD falls somewhat short of what we have come to expect from this otherwise quinessential blues performer. Hopefully, Castro will re-energize and re-focus his efforts to give us another quality release in the near future. In the meantime, "Right as Rain" and "Can't Keep a Good Man Down" will remain benchmarks for what this performer is capable of accomplishing.