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Albert Castiglia, blues guitarist/singer with Top 10 album says he's playing Allentown's Blues, Brew & BBQ A blues singer and guitarist who has worked with some of the genre’s biggest artists and who albums have hit the Top 10 on the blues chart says he will play at Allentown’s 10th annual downtown Blues, Brews & BBQ event in May. Albert Castiglia, who has worked alongside Junior Wells, Pinetop Perkins, Eddy Clearwater and Otis Clay, will perform at 8 p.m. June 10, he says on his website, www.albertcastiglia.net. That timing would make him a headliner at the free festival, which runs noon-10 p.m. for several blocks along Hamilton Street. Castiglia joins Texas guitar prodigies The Peterson Brothers, two young siblings who fuse classic blues with soul, funk and disco, as acts that have announced they’re playing Blues, Brews & BBQ. The Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, which coordinates the festival through its Hamilton District Main Street program, has not announced details of the event. Castiglia, a native New Yorker who moved to Miami when he was young, combines hardcore blues with soul, rock and country music. His singing has been compared to Van Morrison. He was discovered by Junior Wells in 1996, and was Wells’ touring lead guitarist until his death in 1998. Castiglia then was guitarist for blues singer Sandra Hall until 2000 and in 2002 joined David Shelley in the Alligator Alley Allstars, a blues-and-roots super group. Castiglia has since released nine albums of his own, starting with the self-released “Burn” in 2004. His seventh album and his first for Ruf Records, 2014’s “Solid Ground,” peaked at number 10 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart. His most recent disc was “Big Dog” last year. Blues, Brews & BBQ attracted more than 10,000 people in 2015, putting it among the Valley's top festivals, and in 2016 grew to three blocks, stretching from Sixth Street to Ninth on Hamilton. And for the first time Allentown's center-city intersection at Seventh and Hamilton was closed to make room for a bigger stage at The Hamilton Kitchen restaurant. In all the festival in 2016 had four stages -- at the Bell Hall restaurant's plaza, at PPL Plaza, at Allentown Brew Works Biergarten and Hamilton Kitchen. Last year there also was a record 25 food vendors and 25 others giving information or selling crafts, wares and more. Read the original article here.