He wanted to learn guitar after seeing Michael J. Fox duck-walk across a gymnasium stage and into American’s consciousness 35 years ago in Back to the Future.
He wanted to be a star when he and his band played in front of 20,000 fans at a Connecticut amphitheater 10 years later, warming up for Jimmy Buffett.
But he also wanted to pay the bills, forcing him off the stage, to use his creativity behind it. That’s why he’s here. Meet your new executive director at the Capitol Center for the Arts: Salvatore Prizio. Sal for short.
With his aspirations to duck-walk in front of thousands of screaming fans gone, Prizio chose a different path to make an impact on the industry: Combine his business instincts and programming skills from his on-stage days to earn a living in an outside-the-box fashion.
“After almost 10 years of being in the record business and having a music career, I wasn’t where I wanted to be,” said Prizio from his home in Schenectady, N.Y., near Albany. “I had gotten married and had a son. It was time. My wife says I have an omnipresent entrepreneurial spirit. It follows me.”
Prizio booked big names to arenas with seating capacities in the thousands. BB King. James Taylor. Bela Fleck. That side of him, the business side, would have to wait, though. First, there was the matter of becoming a rock and roll superstar. Or at least trying.
He was in grade school when Back to the Future came out, and Fox’s electric guitar licks, representing the new rock-and-roll sound of the 1950s, and the packed, supercharged high school gym had a big effect.
“Since then I wanted to play,” Prizio said. “My mom told me that scene was taken from Chuck Berry, so I taught myself Berry riffs and tried to get my hands on as much music as I could.”
He grew up in Glastonbury, Mass. His mother played Motown records. His father loved old, classic Italian songs. Prizio loved both. He played guitar in a band in high school.
The wheels were turning, even back then. Prizio saw the trend evolving, the coffee-culture explosion of the early 1990s. His band, Feedback, played at a local coffeehouse in town. His friends from school would go. People he didn’t know would, too.
“We brought kids in from the high school, packed the place and played for a few hours,” Prizio said. “For me it was scoring the winning touchdown, on stage with people watching.”
He had another band while attending Northeastern University. He moved to New York City and did accounting work by day for a pair of record companies. That paid the rent.
At night he practiced with his band and played gigs. A show in the Poconos featured three hours of cover tunes, U2 and the Spin Doctors and Led Zeppelin, earning money to fund their studio time.
They did all right. Not bad, really. They were called Even Star and they released four albums and toured the East Coast. They played their own brand of pop. Prizio compared their sound to the Counting Crows.
And then there was that Buffett show, circa 1999, at the Meadows Music Theatre, an amphitheater in Hartford that’s now called the the Xfinity Theatre.
A music insider heard Even Star play at a club and liked them. He knew Buffett’s opening act had canceled. He needed a replacement.
Prizio recalled 20,000 fans.
“I was really excited to be there,” Prizio said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and it turned out to be once in a lifetime.”
From there, Prizio was named the chief financial officer of North American operations for Eagle Rock Entertainment, which has evolved into an international leader in developing, producing and distributing music.
Then entrepreneurship came calling. Prizio opened a place called the Bread and Jam Cafe in 2008 and operated it for more than two years. There, at his coffee shop a few miles outside of Albany, Prizio promoted music, inviting a conveyor belt of local talent to play what became a high-profile and respected small music venue in New York’s Capital Region.
He worked as the program director for the College of Saint Rose Massry Center for the Arts. He booked the acts. He said B.B. King was a great storyteller.
“As a guitar player myself, it was like walking into the Taj Mahal of musicianship,” Prizio said. “He basically invented the genre.”
He said Bela Fleck was nice. James Taylor was the James Taylor we listen to and see on TV.
“One of the nicest human beings,” Prizio said. “We were in a room and no one was watching and he shook everyone’s hand, even the kid who worked the cables. He introduced himself. We knew who he was.”
Prizio often was a one-man band, booking the acts, promoting them, marketing them, sound checks, travel logistics, scheduling, securing grants and private donations. New York’s Capital Region transformed into a mini-hotbed for unknown artists, with Prizio leading the charge.
And while his multitasking skills and endless fuel tank impressed the CCA’s nine-person search committee, his sense of community and ability to create and develop new ideas gave him the nod over about 60 candidates.
“He has been working in large theater cooperatives doing programming for multiple venues,” said Ron Reed, chairman of the CCA’s Board of Directors. “We’re looking to connect to underserved areas in our state and we have an equity and inclusion focus to get outside of our walls, and he’s had good experience of doing that.”
At his last job, with Proctors Theatre Collaborative in Schenectady, N.Y., Prizio was the program manager and event producer, overseeing Proctor’s multiple venues, including its 2,680-seat main stage, a pair of smaller venues and the Rivers Casino.
He worked with one eye on his hometown and the surrounding area. Community, community, community.
Prizio created a program for local artists, who would alternate playing different songs from a particular popular album. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a smash hit recently.
He organized an award show for local talent, bringing the arts to a wider audience, and he helped build a regional 24-hour arts and educational network.
Now he’s here, replacing Nicolette Clarke, who retired last summer after 14 years. He wants to bring the CCA to a new level. More outreach. More varied programming. He starts at the CCA on Nov. 29. His wife and three sons will join him during winter break and start their new lives in Concord.
He said people have been nice to him, and that fits in with his passionate sense of community.
“I came for three days and it was surreal how comfortable it felt,” Prizio told me. “There’s usually some discomfort, but I got no sense of that in Concord.
“I told my wife that it feels like a comfortable pair of jeans.”