Adomono was bron in the 1930s in NY City, and was known to fellow Romani as Peeky. He busked the streets of New York, but at the age of around twenty, he headed West. He played mainly hotel bars and casinos, becoming a regular in the 1960s at the Las Vegas Thunderbird Hotel. He started experimenting with electric guitars and their effects, mainly some kind of reverb called the Ecco-Fonic – mixing spage-age exotica with gypsy violin vibrato on a single guitar.

He played on the Ed Sullivan show and jammed with Duke Ellington, and performed for JFK at the White House. He was hired by tiki impresario Donn Beach to play his Don the Beachcomber restaurant chain, sharing the stage with Martin Denny. In 1974 he recorded some Spanish influenced songs for the Magnemedia label.
He passed away in the 1990s.

Thanks so much for posting your comment. This is definitely one of the more interesting stories I’ve heard about John Adomono.

Sorry about your guitar.

I had just returned from service and was playing aroung Memphis, TN and I ran into him. Although we definitely played different music, I was into my western/country ‘stuff’ and he was nto the “Gypsy” music. He would take my Gretsch 6120, and my EchoSonic amp; built by Ray Butts in Cairo, IL, he would just play the ‘crap’ out of it. He was amazing. He could get more out of a guitar that anyone that I had ever heard.

This was his first playing with a portable echo chamber. He was so enamored with this thing doing echo and making him sound like more guitars. This is where he later got the idea to get the echo-phonic to use. I assume that he continued to use it. It was a lot cheeper than the EchoSonic that I had.

He finally talked me into letting him borrow my guitar and amp to use while in Memphis playing at the clubs. He had it for about two weeks and I needed it back as I had some gigs to do and then later, I found out that he had left Memphis.

This is one segment of his life that I think that didn’t get covered. He DID the Memphis Sceene in the early 60′s.