{"id":337553,"date":"2026-03-09T21:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337553\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T21:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:00:07","slug":"tommy-decarlo-bostons-lead-singer-for-almost-20-years-dead-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337553\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy DeCarlo, Boston’s Lead Singer for Almost 20 Years, Dead at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTommy DeCarlo, who spent nearly 20 years singing with classic-rock favorites Boston<\/a>, died on Monday. He was 60.<\/p>\n

\n\tDeCarlo\u2019s family confirmed his death on Facebook<\/a>, noting that he\u2019d been diagnosed with brain cancer last September. \u201cHe fought with incredible strength and courage right up until the very end,\u201d the family said. \u201cDuring this difficult time, we kindly ask that friends and fans respect our family\u2019s privacy as we grieve and support one another.\u201d A rep for the group did not immediately return Rolling Stone\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDeCarlo was a longtime fan of the group before he got the chance to front them in the late-2000s. A self-taught piano player and choir vocalist, he grew up listening to Boston, and credited original singer Brad Delp with helping him discover his own voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I first began to listen to Boston as a young teenager, I absolutely loved Brad\u2019s voice and how he would sing those classic hits whenever there was a Boston song on the radio,\u201d DeCarlo said in a bio on the Boston website<\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like I was trying to sing like Brad, it was just that I loved to sing along with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, in the mid-Seventies, Boston was one of the biggest rock groups in the world. Their 1976 self-titled debut quickly went platinum on the strength of hits like \u201cMore Than a Feeling\u201d and \u201cPeace of Mind.\u201d (It later earned diamond certification from the RIAA in 1990.) Their second album, 1978\u2019s Don\u2019t Look Back, also sold millions of copies, though they didn\u2019t release a follow-up, Third Stage, until 1986. Despite the long break, the album featured the group\u2019s first (and only) Number One single, \u201cAmanda,\u201d as well as the Top 10 track \u201cWe\u2019re Ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for DeCarlo, by the time he was an adult, he was still singing in rock bands, but otherwise working a day job at a Home Depot in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2007, after Delp died<\/a> by suicide, DeCarlo wrote a tribute song and shared it on MySpace, along with covers of Boston songs like \u201cSmokin’\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back.\u201d At the encouragement of his family, he sent a link to his MySpace page to the Boston camp and made himself available for an upcoming tribute show to Delp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile DeCarlo received a polite rejection at first, a few weeks later, Boston guitarist, songwriter, and bandleader Tom Scholz called him up. Scholz was struck by DeCarlo\u2019s voice, and its similarities to Delp\u2019s. He asked him to join the tribute-show lineup, and not long after, to become a permanent member of the band.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tDeCarlo spent the next nearly 20 years touring with Boston. He was also one of several singers to contribute vocals to their 2013 album, Life, Love & Hope. Along with Boston, DeCarlo also started a band with his son, Tommy DeCarlo Jr., with the group releasing an album, Lightning Strikes Twice, in 2020. A second LP, Dancing in the Moonlight, arrived in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a 2015 interview<\/a>, DeCarlo tried to express the incredible joy of getting to become part of his favorite band. \u201cWe love to listen to it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut to actually perform it live, that\u2019s almost indescribable. It\u2019s an amazing feeling, and it\u2019s something that the fans and band members share together in that moment of music. It\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy DeCarlo, who spent nearly 20 years singing with classic-rock favorites Boston, died on Monday. He was 60.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[9799,93,61,60,278,21676,3208],"class_list":{"0":"post-337553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-obit","14":"tag-obituary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}