Guitarist/singer Peter. Calo will be performing at 8 PM on Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at Passim in Harvard Square, 47 Palmer Street Cambridge with pianist Rob Morsberger.
The club press release quotes WBZ-TV in Boston as saying “Calo stands out as an exceptionally versatile and accomplished talent on the crowded music scene.” and notes that, along with being long-time music director/guitarist for Carly Simon, Calo “has recorded and performed with such legendary Grammy Award winning artists as James Taylor, Hall and Oats, and renowned record producer Phil Ramone… He has performed on numerous television appearances, among them Good Morning America, Regis and Kelly, CBS Good Morning and the Late Show with David Letterman both as a band member and separately with featured guests.”
Peter Calo was born in a small town in Alberta Canada and moved to Boston with his family when he was in high school, 9th grade. At that point in time he took up the guitar and within two years or so was invited by the MIT Classical Guitar Society (founded in 1971 by Vo Ta Han) to perform a concert at Kresge Auditorium in Cambridge. “I started out playing classical guitar, that was my first love along with the blues and funk” the guitarist said from his home in Croton on Hudson, New York in an interview mid-October, 2005.
With Sarah Caldwell and Leonard Bernstein in Bernstein’s masterpiece, “Mass”, Peter Calo was the only person to have performed both the singing role of the rock musician in that opera as well as playing the guitar. “After the performance Leonard Bernstein came up and gave me a hug as I took my bow – I’m looking for the photo of that” (in Calo’s personal archives).
Peter moved to New York where he began doing session work, producing and eventually hooked up with Carly Simon, beginning what is now a ten year relationship with the legendary singer/songwriter.
Calo noted, on his work with Carly: “we’ve been working off and on for ten years…the first tour was 1995. I met her in August – we did an impromptu gig.” They also did a concert taped exclusively for “Lifetime” and Calo’s datebook filled up quickly. Over the years he’s performed on shows with Dobey Gray, Debbie Boone, Lesley Gore as well as “The New York Voices”, a four piece vocal band which toured with Peter as part of the backing trio, performing on their 1993 GRP album, “What’s Inside”, as well as their 1998 RCA disc “New York Voices Sing The Songs Of Paul Simon”. He also worked on Carly Simon’s 1994 disc “Letter’s Never Sent” (Arista” and her Grammy nominated 1997 disc “Film Noir”. A long-time member of the Broadway show “Hairspray”‘s orchestra, he is on their Grammy winning 2002 cast album on Sony. “He goes to bat for the artist when he’s producing” said well-known Boston vocalist Pamela Ruby Russell. “He’s very inspiring, I learned so much from him. He’s kind, professional, very organized, great producer …and a guitarmaster.” Russell also feels that Calo’s musical vocabulary is phenomenal “because he plays in so many genres, in so many types of music.”
His website is http://www.petercalo.com
Peter Calo fans! Feel free to send this short video link around http://tinyurl.com/caloperforms
Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He was a film critic for Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com and produces and hosts Visual Radio. Visual Radio is a fifteen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed John Lennon’s Uncle Charlie, Margaret Cho, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere, Marty Balin, Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.
