Another touch of yesteryear will fade away tonight as Antonio Castillo de la Gala plays his swan song at The Hotel Bel-Air’s Champagne Bar, where the 63-year old has tickled the ivories for five nights a week for over twelve years. Speaking with The L.A. Times, the Veracruz native, who once impressed Paul McCartney with his version of “Eleanor Rigby” and sang duets with The Piano Man himself, expects a packed house of city-residents tonight, eager to hear one more torch song from this L.A. treasure. “Everybody and their mother will be coming,” says Castillo de la Gala. He will bring his 2,000 song repertoire to the Peninsula Hotel next week and has a one-man show for private parties, but as the Bel-Air begins a two-year renovation that displaces over 200 employees, the collaboration of Castillo de la Gala and The Champagne Room that has long transported guests to a different century will come, at least for now, to its end.
At The Hotel Bel-Air, A Pianist’s Elegance and Ivory [L.A. Times]
