1,000 VOICES
Andre-Phillippe Gagnon featured
The Man of 1,000 Voices is coming to Medicine Hat.
Most people dabble in mimicry in their younger years, often as a way to get under the skin of an older sibling or learning exactly how far a parent can be pushed before blowing their top. Most people also grow out of it long before leaving elementary school.
Not so for Andre-Philippe Gagnon, one of the world's top singing impressionists who has forged a career that's lasted more than three decades, shows around the world and countless honours. Gagnon is at the Esplanade on May 25 for a 7:30 p.m. show.
For Gagnon it all started with Tweety Bird and a supportive older brother.
“Instead of laughing at me and going ‘You suck’ he was like ‘Wow,’” Gagnon recalled last month.
With that support behind him Gagnon began doing other cartoon characters and celebrities after hockey games, something he thinks kept him on his peewee AA team. He also realized his impressions made people laugh and all of a sudden he was surrounded by smiling people at home, school and the hockey rink.
His audiences are quite a bit larger these days. He’s toured with Celine Dion, been featured at the Olympics and held a decade-long residency at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Gagnon’s new show is The History of Rock and Roll, in which he performs about 75 impressions of some of music’s biggest stars of the past six decades including the Beatles, The Temptations, Johnny Cash and Enrique Iglesias.
Gagnon has around 1,000 voices in his repertoire, but focuses on quantity and limits the number of impressions for the show to those that have the biggest impact on the audience.
“Barry White, Cat Stevens has an effect, the saxophone that I do, I think people like that,” he said. “When I teach people how to do Mick Jagger, that’s fun. Louis Armstrong. It’s the reactions during the show. For some it will be Phil Collins, Guns N’ Roses, CeeLo Green and the reactions to the song “Crazy.”
Gagnon said some of the biggest reactions don’t come from one specific song or impression but a combination he puts together with help from the audience.
“I have some ladies choose between three choices of voices, three choices of dance moves and three choices of song,” he explained. “So they will choose like either Barry White or Elvis or Julio Iglesias as a singer and the song will be like ‘Unforgettable,’ ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ and while moving like Boy George, LaaLaa from the Teletubbies or Michael Jackson. One night you’ve got Barry White moving like Lala while singing ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ but all the ladies love it.”
Tickets, $49 plus service charge and GST are available at www.tixx.ca, by calling 403-5028777 or in person at the Esplanade box office or the Medicine Hat Mall customer service desk.