Tower Of Power Singer Becomes Voice Of Rehab After Leaving Prison

VACAVILLE (CBS13) — He's being called the voice of rehabilitation.

After 36 years of incarceration, an R&B and funk singer from the 1970s is back on the music scene.

Tower of Power's Rick Stevens went back to prison on Friday, this time to entertain and inspire hope.

The energy inside the California Medical Facility in Vacaville gymnasium has never been this electric. Singing along to his signature song, "You're Still a Young Man," more than 400 inmates got a little bit of funk in their step.

Stevens was the lead singer of Tower of Power. He also spent seven of his 36 years behind bars at the facility. He kept a clean disciplinary record while locked up and was paroled in 2012.

Now at the age of 76, four decades after he killed three men in a botched drug deal, he's spreading a message of hope.

"Anything you want, pray on it, and it will happen," he said. "It took me 36 years but it will happen."

Willie Dunham remembers serving time with Stevens and says he's been a mentor.

"It reassured me that the possibility of doing better things in life, it can happen, it can happen," he said.

He has advice for those looking to him for inspiration.

"Stay positive mentally, spiritually, physically," he said. "But you can't give up, and I never gave up."

Stevens does recognize the pain for his victims' families.

"How much I regretted what I did, and ask for forgiveness," he said.

It's a second chance at life for Stevens, now giving hope to hundreds of inmates like Willie, who will see life outside the prison walls in just a few weeks.