Musician V. Tallarico dies at age of 95
NASHUA – Victor Tallarico, a lifelong musician and father of Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, died this weekend at the age of 95 at the Hunt Community.
Tallarico passed away Saturday at the same retirement community where his wife of 63 years, Susan Ray Tallarico, died in 2008 at the age of 84. Victor Tallarico was a noted pianist and at 93 was still performing at the Hunt at social hour.
Victor Tallarico was father to Lynda Tallarico, a retired teacher who lives in southern Vermont; and Stephen Victor Tallarico, who became a rock and roll legend as Steven Tyler, the flamboyant front man for Aerosmith. Tyler’s daughter, Liv Tyler, starred in a trio of Aerosmith music videos and a number of major films.
In 2010, The Telegraph featured Victor Tallarico, for whom music was always a central focus.
He said there was a time that he and his son were not close because of Tyler’s rock and roll lifestyle, but that changed.
Tallarico said he considered his son a “genius,” and said his favorite Aeorsmith song was the 1970 classic “Dream On.”
“(He’s) number one in the rock field. There’s none like him. There will never be,” Victor Tallarico said.
Both of Victor Tallarico’s parents were musicians; his mother taught piano and his father played the saxophone and cello.
While serving in the Army during World War II, Tallarico was one of 24 people selected to perform at Fort Dix in New Jersey, instead of fighting overseas.
“No one else was even in the U.S. Army like I was,” Tallarico said. “I was not in the ‘Army.’ That’s quite a statement to make. Because I went in … as infantry, military police … and became a musician.”
Fort Dix was also where he met his wife, Susan, marrying her within six months of that meeting.
After studying at Columbia University and Juilliard, he played the ballrooms of historic resort hotels in Sunapee, including the Granliden, the Indian Cave Lodge and the Lake Sunapee Yacht Club, according to his obituary.
The Tallaricos used to spend part of the year at the Hunt Community on the corner of Main and Allds streets, and the rest of the year at their home in Sunapee.
As a young couple, the Tallaricos lived in New York but spent summers in the Sunapee area where they operated the Trow-Rico Lodge with other family members.
The summer tradition ultimately joined their son with some of the other members of what would later became Aerosmith, according to Tyler in the band’s biography, “Walk this Way.”
Tyler was spotted in Nashua last week, and reportedly bought a coat at the Burlington Coat Factory in the Nashua Mall.
The family will hold private services to celebrate Victor Tallarico’s life. An online guest book is available at www.davisfuneralhomenh.com.
Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415, jcote@nashuatelegraph.com. Also check out Cote (@Telegraph_JoeC) on Twitter.