MCCOMB, Miss. (WJTV) – Mississippi has no shortage of musical talent, and one man has had an incredible success singing two different styles of music.
Castro Coleman has had a passion for music for decades.
“Music ran in my family. Just about everybody on both sides could play sing or write, so it was just all around us. I had an itch for it. I was very small so pretty much in the way, but I always stayed in the way and I’m kind of glad I did man,” he explained.
Getting in the way led the McComb native to perform gospel music for 26 years.
“I started out in gospel and that was my passion it still is my passion. I think I covered it. I think I did everything, I’ve been everywhere, I’ve played with everybody, I felt like I had maxed out in gospel so I took two years off. Came home, came off the road, started spending more time in my studio doing production work and realized I was a road rat, I was so bored at home.”
So, Coleman went back to work and started singing the Blues.
“I researched Blues, and it’s somewhat of a lost art. A lot of the older blues players have died. And the few that’s left are dying out. So being from Mississippi and all of the great Blues singers come from Mississippi, whether they migrated to Chicago or whatever, but they come from Mississippi. Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, the late great B.B. King, Bo Diddley from right here in Pike County, and the list goes on.”
Coleman has taken his award winning talents all over the world, singing gospel and the Blues.
“What keeps me performing, I know when I pick that guitar up, when I grab a mic, when I hit the platform, no matter what’s going on in front of me, if I’m playing for an hour and 90 minutes, it don’t exists. Nothing but the light of joy, happiness, peace and love. So if I can do that on a consistent basis, maybe that little light can pull someone out of depression, out of a dark state of mind, change their way of thinking, change their hate to love, and help make the world a better place.”
Coleman will have a new record coming out in 2020.
Click here to learn more about gospel and Blues in Mississippi.
