Albert Castiglia recorded his new album, Grits & Glory (July 31, Gulf Coast Records)

Artiest/Band: Albert Castiglia Album: Grits & Glory Release: 31 Juli 2026 Label: Gulf Coast Records Format:  CD/LP/Digital Genre: Bluesrock Albert Castiglia recorded his new album, Grits & Glory (July 31, Gulf Coast Records), live at Abbey Road Studios in London.

 

Albert Castiglia recorded his new album, Grits & Glory (July 31, Gulf Coast Records), live at Abbey Road Studios in London.

No, he didn’t find a lost Lennon/McCartney song. And despite spending time in the world’s most famous recording studio, he also didn’t make a Beatles record.

Instead, he made an Albert Castiglia record—which may be the most interesting part of this story.

Over the past three decades, Castiglia has built a reputation as one of contemporary blues’ most respected guitarists, beginning with his time in Junior Wells’ band and evolving into a multi-Blues Music Award-winning solo career. The thing is, he’s never been content to simply recreate the past. On Grits & Glory, he pushes his sound into jazz, Latin rhythms, Southern rock, funk, and Hill Country blues while keeping one foot firmly planted in the blues tradition.

Think Buddy Guy’s fire, some hypnotic Hill Country grooves, jazz-flavored instrumentals, and Latin influences drawn from his Cuban heritage—all filtered through a guitarist whose playing has always favored feel over flash.

The album was recorded live as a power trio through Abbey Road’s famed Neve console, so the record has the kind of spontaneity and chemistry that happens when great players are put in a room and told to hit “record.”

Albert is thoughtful, funny, and refreshingly free of rock-star mythology. He can talk at length about recording at Abbey Road, finding new influences, developing his guitar voice, and why the blues is still the perfect canvas for musical exploration.

Pre-order the album ‘Grits & Glory’ HERE

PERSONEL
ALBERT CASTIGLIA : VOCAL & GUITAR
CLIFF MOORE : BASS
LEWIS STEPHENS, DAVE GROSS, BRUCE BEARS: KEY’S
RAY HANGEN : DRUMS
BACKING VOCALS : DEBORAH MICHELS
PRODUCER : DAVE GROSS / ASSISTANT PRODUCER : OLIVER OVERTON
ARTIST MANAGEMENT : LIV
OUGHELTREE & RIC WHITNEY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS : GUY HALE, MIKE ZITO & OLIVER OVERTON

Tracks:
01. In My America
02. I’m Afraid to Fall Asleep
03. Uncertainty
04. Michigan Avenue
05. Sack The Juggler
06. Slum Lord Billionaire
07. The Milk Is Still Good
08. Don’t Burn Down The Bridge
09. When The Coin Came Callin’
10. Afro Blue
11. Yer Blues

• Website:https://www.albertcastiglia.net/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BloodBrothersGulfCoast 
• Band Website: https://www.bloodbrothersband.com/ 

B I O 

Albert Castiglia refuses to stand still. From his career-launching work with blues legend Junior Wells to the award-winning solo career that followed, his journey is defined by both tradition and evolution. That journey continues with Grits & Glory, his thirteenth record since stepping out as a solo artist. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, it's both a continuation and a culmination — an anthology of everything he's absorbed, lived, loved, and pushed against throughout three decades as a working-class songwriter.

Created during a whirlwind era that saw him balancing multiple projects — including his collaborative band with Mike Zito, The Blood Brothers, and an unlikely run of tour dates alongside cult hero Bill Murray — Grits & Glory channels that energy into something expansive and electrifying. The album doesn’t just sit in the blues; it challenges, bends, and even breaks the genre's framework. Castiglia leans into jazz textures inspired by John Coltrane, digs into the Latin rhythms of his Cuban ancestors, and threads a funky groove through tracks like "When the Coin Came Calling." To him, those technicolor sounds are part of the same palette, the shades swirling together to form a picture of his own making. "The blues is the canvas that holds everything together, " he says, "and the colors all fall on top of it."

For Albert, exploration hasn't just been a choice; it's been a constant. Born in New York City to a Cuban mother and Italian father, he moved to Miami at 5 years old, learning early on that music — just like culture — doesn't fit inside tight boundaries. Instead, it ebbs and flows, constantly changing shape. A secondhand copy of Eric Clapton's Just One Night served as his introduction to the blues, and he fell in love with icons like Muddy Waters and B.B. King during the years that followed. Those influences served him well as a member of Junior Wells' touring band, which introduced Albert to the world as a hotshot guitar slinger. Even so, it was his solo debut, 2002's Burn, that proved his willingness not to imitate the sounds he loved, but to find room for the cross-pollination he experienced as a child.

"I'm influenced by anything that can give me goosebumps," he says. "It's not about genre. It's about feeling."

On Grits & Glory, that feeling is both reverent and forward-looking. There's plenty of traditional influence here, including "Slumlord Billionaire" — whose slow-burning blues nods to Buddy Guy — and "I'm Afraid to Fall Asleep," where slide guitars and Hill Country textures channel inspiration from Elmore James and R.L. Burnside. The album's influences reach far beyond the blues, too, from the southern rock riffs of "Uncertainty" — a nod to his upbringing in southern Florida, where acts like The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd were required listening — to the jazz-influenced instrumental "Sack The Juggler." Nodding to the genre-benders who came before him, Albert also reinterprets songs like The Beatles' "Yer Blues" and Mongo Santamaría's "Afro Blue." Even so, Grits & Glory is an album about the modern moment, anchored by original songs that tackle current topics. Songs like "In My America" confront the social unrest and angry division of a country being torn apart, but there's no cynicism here — Albert believes that beneath the noise, common ground still remains.

The content may be contemporary, but Grits & Glory — which Albert recorded at Abbey Road Studios — also carries the weight of musical history. Working in the same space that hosted legendary sessions by The Beatles and Pink Floyd, he tracked the album live, capturing the instincts of a stripped-back power trio on a Neve console. With Ray Hangen on drums and Cliff Moore on bass, Grits & Glory became a testament not only to the studio's legacy, but to his own evolution, too. "A really great studio can help you push the envelope," Albert says. "Being at Abbey Road — in Studio Three, where The White Album, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here were recorded — certainly had an effect on the creativity. The walls still look the same. They've still got Paul McCartney's piano there. It pushes you to do something special."

For more information:

Pati deVries | Pati@deviousplanet.com

     

 

 

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