When Mr. Sipp won a 2024 Grammy Award, he was in very good company. The award celebrated the album Basie Swings the Blues and won a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Mr. Sipp played alongside blues luminaries, including Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Keb’ Mo,’ and he was featured on several tracks as both a vocalist and guitarist. It was heady stuff, indeed, for a well-known gospel performer relatively new to the blues scene.
Mr. Sipp is the alter ego of gospel guitarist Castro Coleman, who spent more than 25 years in the gospel music business as a recording artist and producer. A son of McComb, Mississippi, he began playing the guitar when he was six. In 2014, at the age of 38, he bounded onto the blues scene, winning the 2014 International Blues Challenge by way of the Vicksburg Blues Society. He also won the 2014 Gibson Best Guitarist Award. The industry wasn’t finished: he won the Bobby Rush Entertainer of the Year Award by the Jus’ Blues Foundation, as well. Mr. Sipp released his first blues CD, It’s My Guitar, but fans knew him from the more than 125 recording credits on more than 50 national recordings.
The artist continued his award-winning ways through the next few years while touring the world and finding time for appearances on the big and little screens. He was cast in the James Brown movie, Get On Up, and portrayed a young B.B. King in three episodes on the CMT series, Sun Records. In 2021, he was cast as a blues singer and musician in the movie Texas Red performing one of his original songs from his “pandemic” album, Sippnotized, with a special arrangement for the movie.
Mr. Sipp has quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the blues world. He is recognized for his outstanding vocals, songwriting ability, musicianship, and the ability to entertain with an upbeat, outlandish show. He is, in fact, the complete package.
For Mr. Sipp, it’s about God, family, and, of course, the music. His favorite quote? “I’m living to love the life that I live, Music!”
