Boz Scaggs

He went to prep school with Steve Miller and the duo played together through high school and college in Wisconsin. Then Boz headed to England, before rejoining Miller for his first two albums, "Children of the Future" and "Sailor," both of which were crucial building blocks in the San Francisco scene.

Like a later-day Bobby Blue Bland, he always keeps the soul and blues in whatever he sings. He also brings to mind Van Morrison and Daryl Hall for his ability to interpret every song with grace and style.

Boz was pushed into recording a solo album by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and that album featured an awe-inspiring 12-minute pairing with Duane Allman on "Somebody Loan Me a Dime" sung with a fine whiskey voice.

His huge breakthrough came with "Silk Degrees," the multi-platinum album that made him a household name in the 1970s and a radio darling. The album was almost a bust, before a Cleveland disk jockey picked up on the song "Lowdown" and started playing it. Before we knew it, the album reached the top of the charts, with dance-floor filling songs such as "Lido Shuffle," "What Can I Say?" and "We're All Alone." Now, it is a classic.

"Lowdown" won a Grammy for best R&B song, but Boz was never content with just doing the same thing over and over. He's released more blues albums, jazz standards and some pop with Michael McDonald and Donald Fagan.

Scaggs knocked it out of the park at the eighth Santa Cruz Blues Festival and the audience has been requesting more of the same.

Tower of Power
What is hip? Tower of Power. They've been showing music lovers the answer for years.

This will be the 10-man band's first appearance at the Santa Cruz Blues Festival, and they are bringing their best lineup to it. Members have changed over the years but this latest version of T.O.P. is the tops, with most of the original members reunited.

Founder Emilio Castillo calls their music "Urban Soul." The equation if simple: You hear it; you dance.

Castillo, who plays tenor sax and sings, was raised in Detroit and Fremont, of Greek and Mexican parents, a lineage that explains TOP's musical diversity. He was raised on Booker T and the MGs and Sly and the Family Stone.

He invented what became known as the East Bay Sound. Tower of Power was a favorite of legendary concert promoter Bill Graham and he signed them to his record label.

They have a slew of hits such as "What is Hip?" "You're Still A Young Man," "Don't Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream)," "Down To The Nightclub," and "So Very Hard To Go," and they are the most wanted horn section around the world.

They've appeared on albums by blues festival veterans including Bonnie Raitt, Joe Louis Walker, Elvin Bishop, Little Feat and John Hiatt, as well as backing some of the biggest names in rock, such as Elton John, Heart, Huey Lewis, Rod Stewart and various Doobie Brothers.

With Castillo at the Santa Cruz Blues Festival will be original member Stephen "Doc" Kupka on baritone sax, who wrote a lot of the hits and was inspired by the likes of Bobby Bland's "Turn on Your Love Light" and the Coasters' "Searchin'."

Kupka says the current version of Tower of Power with the return of horn player Mic Gillette, is the best group yet.

"I'd compare us to the great big bands in that we've got our own style, we've been doing it a long time and there's no end in sight," he says.

Gillette on trumpet, took some time off from TOP to play with the likes of Santana, the Rolling Stones, Quincy Jones, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Cold Blood, Sons of Champlin and Huey Lewis, to name a few.

Drummer David Garibaldi started playing music with the Pleasanton Elementary School Band and started playing professionally right out of high school. He is one of the world's most respected drummers, building the funky foundation that the Tower is built on.

Bassist Francis Rocco Prestia is always right there in the pocket, setting it up and knocking it down, like the Motown and Memphis artists who inspired him to pick up the low end.

Those are the originals, and they are joined by singer Larry Braggs, whose fuel is pure funk; Roger Smith on keyboards, who used to tour with Freddie King; horn player Adolfo Acosta, whose inspirations included Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles and Vicente Fernandez; guitarist Jerry Cortez, whose credits include Buddy Miles and Michael McDonald; and Tom Politzer of Detroit and Palo Alto on sax.

Politzer, who was a fan of the band before he joined, describes their music best:

"There's never been a band like this, ever. In the jazz realm you have sophisticated horn sections from Ellington to Thad Jones to Bob Mintzer and Carla Bley. But it's rare to hear our kind of complexity in funk and R&B.

Our horn section is detailed into minutia, to the smallest detail. Think notes that start, cut off and have to move together exactly at the same time!"

Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones
A fourth generation Californian, who grew up in Downey, Calif., Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Dave Alvin is one of the biggest names in the current roots music scene.

Alvin formed the highly influential roots rock band The Blasters, with his brother Phil in 1979. Throughout his long and critically acclaimed solo career, Alvin has mixed his varied musical and literary influences into his own updated version of traditional American music.

He combines elements of blues, folk, R+B, rockabilly, Bakersfield country and garage rock and roll with lyrical inspiration from local writers and poets like Raymond Chandler, Gerald Locklin and Charles Bukowski.

On his two most recent recordings, "Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women" and "West of the West (A Tribute to Native California Songwriters)" Alvin expands his musical range by adding doo-wop, western swing, surf, Norteno music and psychedelic jams to his already eclectic mix.

His songs have been recorded by cutting edge contemporary roots artists such as Los Lobos, Little Milton, Joe Ely, Dwight Yoakam, James McMurtry and X. They have also been featured in many movies and television shows including The Sopranos, True Blood, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Crybaby, Miss Congeniality and From Dusk To Dawn.

This is the West Coast debut of his new band, the Guilty Ones.

Tommy Castro
Tommy Castro, from San Jose, Calif., began playing guitar at the age of 10 and was influenced and inspired by electric blues, Chicago blues, west coast blues, soul music, 1960s rock and roll and Southern rock.

His style has always been a hybrid of all his favorite genres. He names Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Elmore James and Freddie King as guitar influences and Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett and James Brown as vocal influences.

Castro has been on fire this year. He won four blues awards in Memphis which include: Contemporary Blues Artist of the Year, Contemporary Blues Album of the Year for Hard Believer, BB King Entertainer of the Year, and Band of the Year. He was then picked for the cover of Blues Revue magazine's 20th Anniversary Issue in February.

Tommy, the stellar guitarist and singer, rivals B.B. King for putting miles on the bus and playing all over the world. He's a staple on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, and has recorded and toured with the ship's house band, which includes Magic Dick, Curtis Salgado, Kenny Wayne Baker and Deanna Bogart.

His sound draws from both worlds, mixing the energy of Albert Collins and Stevie Ray with the polish of B.B. King or Robert Cray. His voice has tones of Clapton's and his band, sparked by horn player Keith Crosson, channels the soulful fire of Booker T and his fired-up MG's.

Castro is the link between the past and future of the blues, pushing the boulder of tradition into new territories and creating new songs that sound like instant classics. Praised by the likes of B.B. King, he's fast becoming a new legend of the blues, a shining example of the music's future.

Chris Cain
Chris Cain is one of the greatest blues guitar playing today.  Musician after musician and review after review say the same thing. The San Jose-based picker blows fans and critics away with every performance.

Cain was raised on stories of his father’s childhood upbringing on Memphis’ Historic Beale Street and attended his first B.B King concert at the tender age of three. Blues music played continuously on the home stereo and family outings were often trips to concerts.

At the age of  8, Cain taught himself to play the guitar and began playing professionally before he was eighteen. Chris studied music at San Jose City College, and was soon teaching improvisation on campus. Over the next twenty years, Cain also mastered piano, bass guitar, clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone.  His blues upbringing and his jazz studies melded to form the searing guitar style that sets Chris Cain apart and has moved him to the top ranks of the blues music scene.

“What we have here is the next best thing to B.B. King and Albert King,” sums up the Sierra Blues Society’s Brian Augustine. You can’t get much higher praise.