Sal Baglio is a man of multiple musical personalities, which is one reason he’s having way too much fun these days.
He is of course, first and forever known as the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter of The Stompers, the rock quartet that came out of Boston in the 1980s with a major-label record deal and uncorked a series of hits over that decade. They never quite made it big nationally, as so many had predicted, but they carved out a lengthy career as one of New England’s longest-running and most beloved groups.
The Stompers had formed in 1977, with Milton’s Steve Gilligan on bass, and some of their hits included “Never Tell an Angel,” “Rock Jump and Holler,” “American Fun” and “Coast to Coast,” all of them channeling basic 1950s-’60s rock into more modern, arena-rock forms, without losing an essential melodicism that invited Beatles comparisons. And the sheer joy and rockin’ fervor of their work at that time provoked comparisons to another up-and-coming rocker whose music had similarly cathartic and infectious energy, named Springsteen.
More recently, Baglio has performed as The Amplifier Heads, a project that had its debut with the 2019 album Loudah, and continued with the late 2020 concept album Music For Abandoned Amusement Parks. Those albums found Baglio basically playing all the instruments on the records and were done in his Electric Zucchini Studio in Marlboro. For live dates, Baglio would enlist musicians for a quartet.
Last year Baglio brought forth “The Peppermint Kicks,” another sizzling celebration of rootsy rock with that 1960s grit and those melodies that evoke the British Invasion. The Peppermint Kicks, a quartet, was the vehicle for songs Baglio co-wrote with guitarist Dan Kopko.Another musical identity came when Baglio joined songwriters Allen Estes, Needham’s Jamie Walker and former Bob Dylan sideman Stu Kimball for a Songwriters In the Round series of shows in 2020.
Fans can expect music from all those eras of the multipronged Baglio career.
“The ‘Sensational Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster Ride’ is all my new music from the past few years,” Baglio explained from his home last week. “I haven’t been using The Amplifier Heads as the name. After The Stompers stopped, venues still wanted my new band, but the name was not well known. I had done those Amplifier Heads records playing all the instruments myself, but I’d take four of us out for the live dates. This Spire Center show will also include some of the one-man show I’m working on, where I don’t just play the song, but also explain what it is about and how it came to be written, as well as just stories from my rock ‘n’ roll life.”
The Spire Center show will include longtime Baglio cohorts Marty Richards on drums, Brad Hallen on bass and Dan Kopko on guitar. And don’t think Baglio is slowing down at all, either, for he has a new Amplifier Heads record due out in November and is well into the production phase with music for another new album, slated for an early-2023 release. He cautions music fans that his shows are probably not going to be a night of Stompers greatest hits.
REF: The Patriot-Ledger
Sacramento’s K-ZAP 93.3 FM plays The Amplifier Heads. All part of 50 years of Rock, Blues and More, 24-7 on our station’s stream at K-ZAP.ORG/LISTEN/
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