|  | When singer/composer Carly Simon and master songwriter Jimmy Webb need charts done for their upcoming album, it's Simon's long-time guitarist, Peter Calo, who flies from his home in Croton on the Hudson New York to the island of Martha's Vineyard, ready to work with the two legends as their creativity gets into high gear. "Thursday I was with Jimmy Webb all day working with Carly's stuff, recording at Legacy with Frank Filepetti. "Jimmy is just one of my favorite people and songwriters. One hell of a cat" Calo told Modern Guitar in July of 2007. "(Webb's) worked with everybody and... he's beyond the music - he can talk about anything, he's a listener too." Jimmy Webb's arranging, production, songwriting | | and piano credits are staggering including work on Carly Simon's 1997 epic "Film Noir", the Arista album which Calo appears on with this pair of musical giants. Simultaneous with his work with Simon and Webb, Mr. Calo is credited as guitarist on the hit film Hairspray, and for good reason. He's also on the Grammy winning Original Broadway Cast Album of Hairspray which was recorded at Right Track Studio in New York between June 29 and July 1 of 2002. |
| On the recording of the film soundtrack Calo told Modern Guitars that he, guitarist Dave Spinozza, drummer Chuck DeGanon and bassist Frank Centeno trekked up to Toronto in June of 2006 where the music from the Broadway show was modified. With the film breaking the 140 million dollar mark in gross receipts worldwide as of September 5, 2007, the credit becomes all the more impressive. Calo met Dave Spinozza when they were worked on the Joe Pesci record, "Vincent Laguardia Gambini Sings Just for You". Hired by Hall & Oates producer Tom "TBone" Wolk who, coincidentally, played guitar on Carly Simon's Coming Around |  | | Again and was multi instruments on her Greatest Hits Live, they spent about a week with a staggering cast of musicians on a project coordinated by Tommy Mottola. It was that work with Spinnoza that led to Calo's first Broadway show. Calo initially thought it would last about six months, "6 months is a pretty long gig" the guitarist noted considering also that "I'll get to play with my friend Dave Spinnoza."Come August 15, 2008, those initial six months will turn into 6 years. |
 | In between his work on Hairspray and with Carly, not to mention flying to London to perform on James Taylor and Carly Simon's son, Ben Taylor's album, Peter is producing a number of artists including Jan Horvath, New York pianist/vocalist Mary Gatchell and a variety of others including show tune singer Ingrid Saxon (famous vocal coach David Sorin-Collyer's daughter). Calo's production work gets a pristine sound with dynamic performances, an interesting mix of bringing the talent to a place where they can be at their best, complementing but never getting in the way. | A LITTLE HISTORY 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 told this writer back in November of 2005 during the Carly Simon tour. By 1982 his jazz band Bellvista released a six song E.P. followed by his own "Spoonerism" in 1983 and a track, "Fine Line", on 1985's "Boston Rock & Roll Anthology Vol. #7" for this writer's label, Varulven Records. 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). A mainstay of the Boston scene, Calo was involved as an original member of both Down Avenue (the band which had Charles Pettigrew of Charles & Eddie "Would I Lie To You" fame) and The Heavy Metal Horns. After his stints with both groups 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. Peter worked on the Julie Taymor filme "All You Need Is Love" and also released an instrumental tribute to the fab four entitled Here Comes The Sun. Enclosed is the American album art with the Japanese rendition right next to it. |
THE INTERVIEW GemmMagazine.com: Peter, with over a half a decade of work on the Broadway show "Hairspray" how does that experience differ from playing in concert with Jane Oliver, Lesley Gore or Dobie Gray? Calo: In some way they are the same in that it's a show with set arrangements. |  | But most pit bands are not on stage and so you don't feed off the energy of the crowd. That's left for the actors and this creates a separation from the emotion of the show. The Hairspray show is pretty
energetic and the band is pretty much into the music every show. But it's the musicians playing for the musician as we don't see any one and don't really see the actors and some musician don't even know what's going on on the stage. |
| GemmZine.Com Do you throw in new licks or if there's a different crowd response do you create something spur of the moment? Calo: Yes at my show I get to play whatever I want. GemmZine: Do you feel any different about your role in the music industry performing both on Broadway and with artists like Jane Oliver, Carly Simon, Lesley Gore and Jan Horvath - and how does that affect your solo work? | Calo: All the lovely women you mentioned all have their own personalities which I really dig. Comparing who they are as people and their music is apples and oranges. And well, the music of "Hairspray" is Marc Shaiman. He is an amazing person and of course... what a talent. I'd like to think that I've gotten something wonderful and useful from all these musicians and it comes out in my music in some way. GemmZine.com: Do the contacts help your solo work? Calo: No and, well... yes. I don't actively do my solo work. I just let it happen. Probably not to great results. |
| GemmZine.com: We disagree with you, Peter, your body of solo work over the past few decades is deep and worth exploring. The Bellvista discs in the early 80s show a communication through instrumental music that the audience at jazz club Ryles turned out for and enjoyed; the post-Bellvista recordings with John Cafferty engineer Phil Green captured on "Spoonerism" featured a pop side the fans might not have detected prior to its release, as well as the instrumental work in between Carly Simon's releases Letters Never Sent (1994) and Film Noir (1997) that was the "Cape Ann" CD. Bur your 2001 disc on North Star, "Cowboy Song", |  | is a beautiful ode to traditional songs from the old west that would make C & W fan (and Elton John lyricist) Bernie Taupin proud. North Star's instrumental tributes to The Beatles and The Eagles also provide insight into the wide range of music that you embrace and re-visit. And then you switch hats from that array of genres to participate in Hairspray. Calo: Hairspray is a wonderful, wonderful group of people. from the band to the stagehands to wardrobe, hair production, the producer of course and the actors. It is a small village. Sometimes, well many times, folks sub in the band - all the different instruments - so it's kind of not even the same band for two nights in a row... and yet it is as we all know and play together all the time. The hang is as great as any backstage - jokes, talk, gossip and all that. Sometimes we are tired so we play in silence. Sometimes we are cracking jokes all night long. Sometimes we shed in between tunes. I'm fortunate to be in a great show with a great band with a great conductor. It could be a lot worse. The road show to Les Mis in Teledo OH. sorry Teledo..... Hey you get the point. GemmZine.com: And in juggling the Broadway work, Carly's new CD, the production of a variety of artists as well as raising a family, you continue to come up with new idea for your solo work. Calo: I have always written. Now I'm in a (more intense) writing period and I feel a recording or two coming out. I want to put out a CD of songs. I also want to do an acoustic guitar CD out. I'm very excited about this. |
| I'm currently working with Carly simon on her next release which will be out on the Starbucks/Hear Music label. Jimmy webb is the co producer with Frank Filipetti engineering. I had a treat writing with Carly and Jimmy and throwing my two cents in guitar wise. GemmZine.com: Do you - on your own or perhaps with some of the other musicians - want to create new music for Broadway? | Calo: Yes, I would love to write a very successful Broadway show and make a lot of money. It's kind of a dream of mine. GemmZine.com: What did you do on the soundtrack to the film Flawless? Calo: I played classical guitar throughout the film. It was an amazing score. Very clever and a really nice film GemmZine.com: Your filmography is impressive http://www.petercalo.com/ct_discography_f.shtml how does working on a PBS special differ from your interaction with directors like Julie Taymor? Calo: It's all the same. When you work with talented people with a vision and who like to be creative and like when you're creative, well it's just wonderful. 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, as mentioned above, on her Grammy nominated 1997 disc "Film Noir". "He (Peter) 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." Ingrid Saxon echoed Russell's sentiments: "Peter knows so much about the recording process - he's been on so many sessions; he knew how to work with the engineer, work with the pro-tools. He had every angle covered. "Along with involvement soundtrack to the 1999 Robert De Niro film "Flawless" and other movies, Calo's recorded output is becoming voluminous - work with Linda Eder, Rosie O'Donnell, David Osborne, Kate Taylor and so many others. In early September, 2007, he is going to the premiere of Julie Taymor's film "Across The Universe" where Taymor utilizes the music of the Beatles to forward the plot. Peter Calo's involvement with the film came early on working with the actors in the very beginning, singing some of the tunes in rehearsals and helping the actors get into character. Calo also appears on the soundtrack to the film as his guitar work does in the aforementioned Flawless and Hairspray movies. If he's not jet-setting in L.A. with Tara Macri (who just finished a successful run on Broadway as "Amber Von Tussel" in Hairspray) or performing music director duties for Gospel/Classical/Opera/Pop singer Jeeminn Lee he might be tearing it up at clubs like The Town Crier where bassist Peter Donovan and drummer Joe Mowatt join him to jam. The singer/songwriter/guitarist always finds interesting projects coming his way - at the present time working on a "Spoken Arts" children's book entitled "Mississippi Morning" which is based in the South in 1933. The subject matter - racism in the Depression era - is a heavy theme for a children's book. |
| With all this output his own work gets somehow lost in the shuffle. It shouldn't. Peter Calo's "Cowboy Song" album is historical and an instant classic that should be in libraries across the country. The artist recorded contemporary arrangements of songs from the American West including "Shenandoah", "Red River Valley", and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." A big departure from his instrumental tribute albums to The Eagles and The Beatles, two separate discs, on the North Star label, and his own "Wired To The Moon" and "Cape Ann" albums. An overall look at Peter Calo's body |  | of work is wonderfully time consuming and fun - over a decade with Carly Simon, an essential part of her new collaboration with Jim Webb, current soundtracks to Hairspray and Across the Universe as well as nightly performances on Broadway as a guitarist in Hairspray as well as his production work, the children's book and his solo career. One needs a scorecard...or a page with plenty of room for a perpetual discography. For more information on this influential and important artist who worked many a Boston/Cambridge nightclub and theater, go to http://www.petercalo.com Read more about Peter Calo on Gemmzine: http://tinyurl.com/petercalobeatles |
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