Plugging into Phoenix Music: Working Class Hero

Friday, July 25, 2014

Some people mount John Lennon tribute shows and we listen to hundreds of wannabes and nowhere men in the bargain. But rare are the people who are drafted to chew gum and sing John Lennon songs because of an uncanny resemblance. When producer Gordy Deems was working at Chaton Recording Studios in Phoenix, he noticed the studio's owner and engineer/producer Otto D'Agnolo bore a striking resemblance to the ex-Beatle. Deems told him he should be in a John Lennon tribute show and then assembled that very show around him. "I told him I sounded even more like Lennon than I looked," said D'Agnolo, a notion Deems seconded when he heard D'Agnolo's own original music recorded under the pseudonym Caesar Bach. As one reviewer observed of that album, "It sounds like John Lennon trying to sing like George Harrison."

"That was an astute observation," said D'Agnolo who readily admits his melody and rhythm ideas are George-influenced. "But I love John as well." D'Agnolo and musical director Deems are hoping lots of people love John as well now that "Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon," which has was teased at an invite-only Last Exit Live preview last summer now has its first full -length performance for Arizonans on Friday, Aug. 1, at Vee Quiva Hotel and Casino in Laveen. It's a 90-minute show, 40 minutes of which are devoted to the music he made as a Beatle. Because, as D'Agnolo learned, there are varying degrees in which other people love John Lennon.