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... by Joanne Corsano ... joanne@picturelake.com

Sal Baglio at the Menino Arts Center
click thumbnail to see a photo gallery
of the concert

Sal Baglio on guitar and vocals.

Scroll to below videos for a review of the show.

Strawberry Girls

Zombie Moon

Sunny Goodge Street (by Donovan)

Shag 72

Sal Baglio is a master at running the gamut from topnotch rock 'n roll, even when it's just one guy with an acoustic guitar, to tender acoustic ballads, that same one guy. Every song was accompanied with stories of the then and there. Nostalgia is where it's at, baby, in a Sal show, joyful reminiscing that has you laughing out loud, wistful reminiscing that has a bit of a welling up of tears.

He talked about Feb. 10, 1964, when he was seven years old and all the Italian kids in his East Boston neighborhood were enthusiastically talking in fake English accents and they were all saying "let's start a band." There were so many stories, illustrated by groovy songs that he wrote himself, and covers chosen by a master. There were relatively new songs, like the Abandoned Amusement Park songs of the Amplifier Heads, with really old songs, like "Strawberry Girls" that he said he started almost half a century ago. He said he wrote "Zombie Moon" recently, and the psychedelic "Summer We Wore Clogs" a long time ago. Then there were the just plain fun songs, like the "I Am a Dinosaur" singalong, which led into the intermission.

Then there were the covers. One cover was the Bay City Rollers' "Rock 'n Roll Love Letter," which a set list I kept in 2001 tells me he's been performing for over two decades, at least, and he admitted that he wishes he wrote himself. Another was the mystic, mood-enhancing Donovan song "Sunny Goodge Street." How could any two songs be any different?

Sal is delighted to be a sexagenarian, although it turn out he's only going to have "sex" in his age for another two years. I admit I saw Sal in concert for the first time about forty-five years ago, back in the days of my pub-crawling youth, when his band The Stompers were the rage in the club scene in Boston. (Sorry, Sal, how could I not mention them, but I saved them for the last paragraph at least.) Then I finally met Sal in person and got to be his actual friend when he opened four times for Dave Davies of The Kinks at the Sit 'n Bull Pub in Maynard, MA in the years 1999 through 2001.

This was my first visit to the Menino Cultural Center in Hyde Park, a neighborhood of Boston. It turned out to be fairly easy to find and there was free on street parking close to the venue. The concert space is on the second floor of a building where there are art exhibits and art classes, all funded by the Mass. Cultural Council. Besides the occasional concert on a Friday evening (which are free -- we like free!), they have all sorts of art and poetry events. Quite a neighborhood art center -- we like! And free refreshments too during the intermission!

Here is a page with a handy list of links to all pages on this website with content relating to Sal Baglio and The Stompers.