Remembering Sal Maida (1948-2025): All-Star Bassist and More
Playing with Roxy Music and Sparks was only the tip of the iceberg
Sal Maida’s stock in trade was an authoritative bass sound as big as his towering frame.
But when you paid even the smallest amount of attention, the subtleties and melodic invention in his lines rapidly revealed themselves.
That combination of power and poetry in his playing is what made him the bassist for some of the most influential acts around. But he never lost the purity of the rock ‘n’ roll passion that drove him from the beginning, and that’s what made him so widely beloved in the musical community of his native New York City. And it’s what made his passing on February 1 at age 76 a doubly tough gut-punch.
Growing up in Little Italy, he was exactly the kind of kid Lou Reed described in the Velvet Underground’s “Rock & Roll” — Maida’s life was sure enough saved by rock ‘n’ roll. He never stopped being consumed by music, both as a player and a fan.
That’s what drove him to England after college, and the palpability of that feeling must have been part of what made him Roxy Music’s bass player in 1973- ‘74. Maida brought his poise and punch to the band’s tour supporting the Stranded album and can be heard on a couple of cuts on their live record Viva.
VIDEO: Roxy Music “Pyjamarama”
He made his way back to New York after that, where he joined local power poppers Milk ‘N’ Cookies, playing on their lone, self-titled album, released by Island Records in 1975, eventually regarded as a cult classic. What the band lacked in longevity it made up for in originality, becoming an influence on the city’s burgeoning punk scene.
Maida bounced back quickly after Milk ‘N’ Cookies came apart, joining Sparks in time to cut their 1976 album Big Beat. Diverging from their arch art-pop sound towards a more muscular rock feel, the record was tailor-made for Maida’s propulsive style.
The following year, he had another brush with legend, but it didn’t become widely known until years later. Runaways manager and producer Kim Fowley tapped Maida to be the ghost bassist on the band’s 1977 album Waitin’ for the Night, but swore him to secrecy about his playing on the project. Fowley subsequently drafted Maida to play on several other albums, including Runaways frontwoman Cherie Currie’s solo debut, Beauty’s Only Skin Deep.
In the ‘80s, Maida worked with the love of his life, singer/songwriter Lisa Burns, playing, co-writing, and producing both her solo work and their new wave band Velveteen, which released an EP on Atlantic in ‘83. The ‘90s found him working with everybody from Golden Carillo (an offshoot of influential ‘70s CBGB darlings The Shirts) to songsmith Bob Hillman.
Maida began a long stint touring and recording with Cracker in the ‘00s, appearing on multiple releases by the alt-rock heroes. And in more recent years, he played with John Dunbar and Sal Nunziato in The John Sally Ride, whose latest album came out just last November.
The rock-obsessed fan in Maida never died, and over the years he found plenty of ways to indulge his unabashed music geekdom: DJing on indie online Brooklyn station The Lot, working in collectors’ record shops where his own vaunted collection made him a kind of record-nerd guru, and especially writing about the music that moved him.
Detailing both his high-flying musical experiences in the ‘70s and his brushes with everybody from The Rolling Stones to Can, Maida released his memoir, Four Strings, Phony Proof, 300 45s, & Bottom’s Up in 2017. Partnering with esteemed music journalist and record-biz vet Mitchell Cohen, he was the co-creator of the two-volume White Label Promo Preservation Society, which focused on great, unknown albums and included contributions from an all-star cast of music scribes and artists.
Maida was the epitome of the “gentle giant” trope; imposing 6’6” stature and unreconstructed New York accent notwithstanding, he was a tender, friendly soul. He was proud of his illustrious past but he’d be the last one to toot his own horn, and if nobody else ever hipped you to his history, you might know him for years and never hear him mention it. At the same time, tellingly, he always remained friends with his old bandmates from Roxy, Sparks, et al. Probably because, as with everyone else he knew, Maida showed them exactly who he was: a man who remained unfailingly connected with what got him into music in the first place.
The words of some who have shared their sadness over his death have echoed that idea. On Facebook, Marty Willson-Piper of The Church made sure to note that in addition to Maida’s stellar CV, “Sal was also a record lover, DJ, and collector, and trips to the Princeton Record exchange with him and Ed [Rogers] will always be the fondest of memories in my heart.”
On Instagram, Milk ‘N’ Cookies singer Justin Strauss remembered, “He would play me all these amazing records I never heard that he had gotten on his trips to England. And then when Milk n’ Cookies went to England for the first time he would take me to all these little record shops he knew.”
Whether he laying down timeless sounds, spinning them on his radio show, or writing about them in his books, everything Sal Maida did was 100 percent from the heart, the very space he’ll occupy unceasingly in those who were touched by his passion.
VIDEO: Spin Cycle with Sal Maida
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