Nature may have endowed Sandy Kastel with her show-stopping voice, but she perfected it by observing America’s greatest singers at work. “When I was little,” she says, “I used to sit up in the light booth when my dad was playing in the showrooms in Las Vegas and watch the performers he was working with. I saw Sinatra, Ann-Margret, Carmen McRae, Shirley MacLaine, Steve & Eydie, Tony Bennett—all the giants.”
Kastel’s dad was jazz saxophonist Dick Kastel, who moved his family from Mesquite, Texas to Las Vegas when Sandy was eight years old to play in the Harry James Band. Wanda Jean, Kastel’s mom, was a Texas-born beauty who made her musical mark in San Francisco as part of a sister song-and-dance team.
Drawing on her rich heritage and years in the spotlight, Kastel (rhymes with pastel) has just released her first country album, Indiana Rain. It is a stunning achievement, brassy and sweet, thoughtful and celebratory, but always emotionally honest. Kastel penned six of the album’s 12 songs, including the title cut and the first single, “Indiana Rain.”
Talent attracts talent. So it’s no surprise that Kastel’s producers—Ron Aniello, Jeff Lorber and Jimmy Haslip—are some of the most honored names in the record business. Aniello has produced and written songs with such headliners as Lifehouse, Six Pence None The Richer, Jars Of Clay and Patty Scialfa. Lorber, a renowned artist in his own right, has produced and done session work for the likes of Herb Alpert, Dave Koz and Laura Branigan. Haslip, a legendary bass player, was a founding member of the fusion group Yellowjackets and has worked with Bruce Hornsby, Rita Coolidge, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan and Anita Baker, among others. Clearly, Kastel was in good hands.
“I was always attracted to performing on stage,” the former Miss Nevada recalls. “I started at four years old singing to Sinatra records. The first song I learned was ‘You Make Me Feel So Young.’ With my dad being jazz and my mom country, I grew up with both those influences in my life.” As her own songs indicate, Kastel was early drawn to the “strong women” of country music—Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton. Later she looked for inspiration to such vocal stylists as Reba McEntire, Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride and Shania Twain.
“I’m a positive kind of personality,” Kastel asserts, “kind of like Barbara Mandrell. I’m happy, I smile a lot and I don’t look like a rocker.”
You can almost see Kastel’s country role models nodding approval as she declares her independence in “Don’t Tell Me” or blows past every obstacle the road can hurl at her in “Nashville Tonight.” They would also identify with “Curve Appeal,” Kastel’s bouncy tribute to the ’57 Chevy—and the guys attracted to them. She again shows her playful side in “Rope Me A Cowboy” but settles down for some serious spirit-boosting in “Detour.” With “Indiana Rain,” she probes the pain of separation and loneliness.
“Ron, my producer, told me, ‘Sandy, the good thing about your songs is that they’re very fan friendly. Once they’ve heard them, people can sing along with them right away. They’re hooked.”
Kastel began singing professionally when she was 17 and still in high school. “I was in a band called Off The Wall,” she says. “We worked private parties and dances. When I was 18, I went on the road with Terry Richards [former lead singer of Chase] and his band. That same year, I was named Miss Las Vegas. After I came back to Las Vegas from the tour, I enrolled at the University of Las Vegas and did musical theater. Then I won the Miss Nevada pageant and went on to win the talent division in the Miss America competition.”
The young beauty continued to tour around the country until she got married and decided to work closer to home. “Since then,” she says, “I’ve performed mostly in Las Vegas and some in Indiana, where my husband’s from.” More recently, she’s become a familiar face in Nashville, writing, recording demos and taking her turn at songwriter showcases. In 2007, she released two albums of jazz and pop tunes, Only In Vegas: The Event and This Time Around. The acclaim she received for these efforts convinced her it was time to tap into her country roots and show just how strong they are.
To Kastel’s other achievements, you can now add that of motivational writer. She contributed a chapter to Life Choices: Navigating Difficult Paths, a collection on decision-making published earlier this year. Deciding what she wanted to write about inspired a song as well. “I was starting on my chapter,” she says, “but I hadn’t really written anything down. Then I found out that my mom had a tumor in her lungs. Besides that worry, I was also working on the album and we were building a house. So I was going through all sorts of stressful situations. I woke up one morning from a dream and said, ‘My life has been a series of detours.’ So I ended up writing the song “Detour” as I was writing my chapter for the book.”
Indiana Rain, Kastel believes, is more of an on ramp than a detour in her musical journey. “I grew up singing a variety of music,” she says. “I had to if I was going to make a living at it. But my whole life people have asked me if I’m a country singer. I really didn’t think much about it until a few years ago when I realized that all my family was from the West and Midwest, which is pretty much the cradle of country music. I think the album speaks for itself.”
It does, and quite eloquently, too.
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Sandy Kastel, a former Miss Nevada and Miss America talent award winner, SUPPORTS CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK through personal appearances to raise funds for this alliance of premier hospitals for children.
Visit my website at SandyKastel.com
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