A career in show business can take some strange twists. Sometimes a performer gets plucked out of nowhere and placed the spotlight by an unlikely patron. In 1989, heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson asked John Pagano to sing the National Anthem before one of his bouts in Las Vegas. That performance launched Pagano from regional crooner to international star, singing as the lead male vocalist in Burt Bacharach’s band.
On August 15, Pagano will sing the Star-Spangled Banner before a more local crowd, this time at Coronado’s Tidelands Park, when he joins the San Diego Symphony at a free concert celebrating Coronado 125th anniversary.
Before he met Tyson, Pagano was fronting XPO, a popular rhythm and blues band that played in clubs along the eastern seaboard.
“Mike’s training camp was in the Catskills and he used to come into a club in Albany where XPO performed. It was a small, out-of-the-way place that had a reputation as a musicians’ club, a place where other musicians came to listen and to jam on occasion,” Pagano said in a phone interview from his home in Studio City. “It was called Septembers. It’s no longer there.”
The first time Tyson came into the club, he asked Pagano to come with him into the club’s kitchen and sing for him a capella. After a few bars the boxer told Pagano that he “could sing” and that if he ever came out to Vegas the man known as “Iron Mike” would take care of him.
A few years later, Pagano was in Los Angeles to meet with Warner Brothers about a recording contract. At the same time, Tyson was in Vegas preparing for a fight.
A friend, who had tickets to the fight, invited Pagano to drive over with him. Drawing a deep breath for confidence, Pagano approached the front desk at the Hilton and asked for Tyson. The next thing Pagano knew, he was booked into a suite — at no charge — and Tyson called to invite him to sing the National Anthem before the fight.
Tyson’s manager at the time, Don King, tried to scuttle the plan, but Tyson insisted. “Mike stood by me,” the Providence, Rhode Island native said.
After the fight a representative from MCA records approached Pagano and asked if he had a record deal. He told her about his talks with Warner Brothers. “Have you signed with them?” she asked. When he said no, she urged him to talk to MCA. He did.
“That’s how I met Burt.” The meeting led to a 17-year association that has taken Pagano around the world, singing to hundreds of thousands of people.
During that time, Pagano also forged a solo career as a recording artist and as opening act for some of America’s best known entertainers, including Whitney Houston, Elvis Costello, Garth Brooks and Faith Hill. Jerry Seinfeld asked him to open for him at Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. “He was at the height of his TV show popularity at the time,” Pagano said.
His albums, A Soulful Musical Journey and Pure Imagination, evoke the sensibilities of the rhythm and blues elements that shape Pagano’s vocal stylings. Although he has a passion for R&B, there were other influences on his sound as well. Growing up, he listened to a wide range of music, from Marvin Gay and Smokey Robinson to The Beatles. “Of course growing up in an Italian-American family I heard a lot of Frank Sinatra,” he said. “My father woke us up every morning to go to school with Sinatra.”
The upcoming performance at Tideland’s Park will be Pagano’s first appearance in Coronado, but not his first with the San Diego Symphony. He’s performed with the San Diego Symphony annually for the last 12 or 14 years. “We’re old friends at this point,” he said.
Despite his success as a performer and recording artist, Pagano’s singing career got off to an inauspicious start. He was learning to play the guitar and one of his relatives asked him to sing.
“I wasn’t very good and they laughed at me,” Pagano remembers. He went into his room and started practicing. “Nothing like being laughed at to make you better,” he said. The practicing paid off. It not only redeemed him with his family, it ultimately brought him into the obit of superstars.
Many have become longtime associates and friends, including Tyson. “We’re still friends and we talk from time to time,” Pagano said. While the boxer led a troubled, turbulent life — including a very public and very acrimonious divorce from the actress Robin Givens and a rape conviction — Pagano saw another side. The Mike Tyson he knew was loyal and generous and true to his word. “He always did right by me.”
See John Pagano at Tidelands Park on Saturday, August 15, 2015 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Learn more here.
