Black and white photo of Don Ho wearing a lei
A Tale of Two Dons

How late musician Don Ho and contemporary musical group Don Tiki have created and perpetuated the sounds of the islands.

Text By
Rae Sojot
Images by
John Hook & Courtesy of Adrienne Liva Sweeney

Part I, Don Ho

Among the many glittering constellations that make up Hawai‘i’s musical legacy, one star shines the brightest.

In 1965, San Francisco radio host Jim Lang played a soundtrack from a Hawaiian singer relatively unknown beyond Hawai‘i’s shores. As Don Ho’s voice crooned over the airwaves, the station’s switchboards lit up in a flurry of flashing lights. Calls flooded in. “Who was that singer?” listeners wanted to know. With this broadcast, Don Ho’s star blazed its bright trail across the Pacific, heralding the beginnings of an incredible 50-year musical career in the islands and worldwide.

Born in 1930, Donald Tai Loy Ho was the second of six children in a Hawaiian-Chinese-Portuguese family. Growing up on O‘ahu’s windward side, Ho was proud of his country roots. Upon graduating from Kamehameha Schools, Ho headed to Springfield College on a football scholarship, returning a year later to complete his studies at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and to marry his high school sweetheart, Melva May. Soon after, he enlisted in the military and served as an Air Force pilot, flying jets in Texas and California. However, Ho was an island boy at heart, and Hawai‘i ultimately called its son home.

Ho’s nascent path into the entertainment industry began at his parents’ small restaurant and bar, Honey’s. His father, who hoped to rejuvenate the business, encouraged the young Ho to form a makeshift band with friends. Magic ensued. Ho soon found himself the charismatic fulcrum of a lively, kanikapila brand of entertainment. Crowds were regaled with his stories and adored his ain’t-no-big-thing attitude. Audience members were cajoled into letting loose, singing, and dancing, often on the stage itself. Word spread of the rollicking good times had at the little country bar, and people streamed in from across the island to take part in the revelry. In 1964, Duke Kahanamoku, Hawai‘i’s Ambassador of Aloha, asked Ho to play at his namesake supper club. Kahanamoku and Ho had fostered a warm friendship since their beach-boy days, and Ho considered the invitation a great honor. Packing up their Kāne‘ohe show, Ho and his band headed for the big lights: O‘ahu’s nightclub hotspot, Waikīkī.

It was the early 1960s, and Waikīkī was welcoming a robust influx of tourists eager to experience all things Polynesia. Burgeoning air travel and widespread coverage of Hawai‘i’s recent statehood secured O‘ahu’s status as a dream destination. By day, Waikīkī offered postcard-perfect swaying palms and white sand beaches. By night, it glittered with a bevy of lounges brimming with musical acts. Ho’s “hapa haole” music struck a golden chord with Waikīkī crowds—its blend of Hawaiian and English verse, accompanied by Hawaiian instrumentation like ‘ukulele and steel guitar, served as a tropical soundtrack for the island’s vibrant and diverse culture. Ho made Hawai‘i accessible to everyone. “Don was proud to be Hawaiian,” says Adrienne Liva Sweeney, Ho’s personal secretary from 1968 to 1975 and a trustee of the Don Ho Trust. “He incorporated Hawaiiana into his shows and would have people singing Hawaiian songs, teaching the words phonetically.”

But it was Ho’s penchant for people that was his lodestar. With his insouciant charm and ease of rapport, Ho calibrated his shows with the same loose approach he had cultivated at Honey’s. Rather than a formal set of musical numbers, the show flowed unscripted—attendees would scribble song requests and messages, sending them to the stage via cocktail napkins. A master at connecting with the audience, Ho knew how to tease, humor, and inspire his guests. From his seat behind his Hammond chord organ, with a Chivas Regal scotch in hand, he’d serenade grandmothers, recognize military servicemen, and, a perennial favorite of the crowd, slyly promise honeymooners to end the show on time so they could return to their hotel rooms.

Just as he did at Honey’s, Ho called upon audience members to join him onstage in song and dance, and his gift for comic enterprise could work the crowd into fits of laughter. Big wave surf pioneer Peter Cole fondly recalls his first brush with the inimitable entertainer. At the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku International Surfing Championship held at Sunset Beach, Kahanamoku invited Cole and his pals to join him in Waikīkī later that evening for Ho’s show. There, Ho beckoned the tall, lanky surfer to the front with a wily grin. “Can you imagine?” Cole says, chuckling at the memory. “He had us up there, a bunch of North Shore surfers, trying to do the hula on stage.” At Ho’s shows, such larks were expected: You didn’t just watch the show, you became part of it.

The Don Ho Show was a wildly popular Waikīkī feature, its success marked by a consistently packed 300-seat house, three shows a night, seven nights a week. “No two shows were ever the same,” says Shep Gordon, a talent manager for many of the last century’s well-known musicians, who estimates that he and his friends went to the show dozens of times. “Don was the consummate performer.” Over the next five decades, the show flourished, and Ho cemented his position as Waikīkī’s top entertainer.

The musician went on to achieve international acclaim (his 1967 hit song “Tiny Bubbles” became an eponymous anthem) through guest appearances on television, his own on-air variety show, records, and engagements at large mainland venues. After each performance, he greeted his fans, signed autographs, and listened to their stories. “Don’s mission every night was to make people happy, feel good, and to create memories they’d never forget,” says Haumea Ho, the show’s longtime executive producer and dance soloist, whom Ho married in 2006 (Melva May passed away in 1999). “Everyone would leave the show feeling like he was their best friend. … Don was their Hawai‘i brother.” Ho remained a dedicated performer, continuing his trademark show at various Waikīkī venues up until two days before his death in 2007.

In the decade since his passing, Ho’s legacy continues to shine bright, stretching beyond music and into the realm of something deeper and more pure: a celebration of human connection. “Everyone who met him has a ‘Don Ho’ story,” says Sweeney of Ho’s love for people. This year, the Don Ho Trust gifted nearly 75 boxes of photos, recordings, and film footage to the University of Hawai‘i West O‘ahu to be preserved and digitized. Future generations will now have access to a man who reached millions through his extraordinary generosity of spirit.

For those who dreamed of Hawai‘i, or visited the islands and attended his show, Ho made paradise personal. “When you think of Hawai‘i, you think of Diamond Head, you think of Pearl Harbor,” Haumea says, then pauses. “And you think of Don Ho.”

Part II, Don Tiki

This exotica music group is like the sound it creates—strange and sensuous, with a zany sense of self-awareness.

Shep Gordon laughing
“No two shows were ever the same,” says Shep Gordon, a talent manager for many of the last century’s well-known musicians. “Don was the consummate performer.”

Lloyd Kandell’s baptism in exotica’s eternal font took place when he was 10 years old. It was the early ’60s, and tiki fever was sweeping the United States, enticing middle-class Americans to let their hair down and “go native.” Embracing the craze, Kandell’s parents paid homage the way most of its disciples did: by throwing backyard tiki parties. The faux tropical fetes made for an intoxicating mise en scene. Men eschewed starched shirts for their best Waltah Clarke alohawear, and women slipped into colorful mini mu‘umu‘u. Donning fake flower lei, guests passed trays of rumaki—suburbia’s attempt at Polynesian fare—and sipped tropical libations adorned with paper umbrellas. All the while, a background of the jungle jazzy sounds of musician Martin Denny wafted through the air.

Nearly five decades later, the tiki torch still burns bright. Today, Kandell and Kit Ebersbach are the creative forces behind Don Tiki, a neo-exotica music group summoning the mysterious sounds of the islands into the 21st century. With Kandell and Ebersbach at its core, Don Tiki consists of a wide assemblage of talents, such as bassist and vocalist Hae Jung, vocalists and dancers Sherry Shaoling and Violetta Beretta, and percussionist Lopaka Colon. (Lopaka is the son of Augie Colon, the percussionist and birdcall extraordinaire who played with Denny.) The group’s signature live shows are found on stages both low and highbrow, with venues ranging from La Mariana and the Honolulu Symphony to Las Vegas showrooms, a Berlin music festival, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. With five albums produced, and a foray into the Japan market currently in the works, Don Tiki’s zany, subculture allure attracts an ever-changing roster of guest musicians, vocalists, and dancers eager to join the Don Tiki tribe. “A cast of thousands,” Kandell quips.

America’s fascination with Polynesia first emerged after World War II, as servicemen returned from their South Seas outposts with heady tales of paradise found. It was the perfect antidote for a war-weary nation, and Americans became besotted with escapist visions of a tropical Garden of Eden. Savvy proprietors like Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic capitalized on this intrigue, debuting restaurants and lounges replete with carved tikis, shell lamps, and signature drinks. Soon, faux island motifs surfaced in everything from architecture and art to food and fashion. Exotica music became the consummate soundtrack and a barefoot ethos supplanted bobby sox, as Americans gleefully granted themselves permission to tap into their primal sides.

Though the tiki craze reached its zenith 50 years ago, it never quite disappeared. Its over-the-top aesthetic avoids extinction thanks to pockets of die-hard tikiphiles worldwide, while exotica music’s amaranthine appeal sates curious music heads seeking fringe genres. Kandell, influenced by the trifecta of exotica greats—Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Arthur Lyman—met the big kahuna himself, Denny, at a Steinway piano performance. The serendipitous encounter convinced Kandell, then 44, that a career in music, albeit begun late, could be a career nonetheless. After all, Denny had been in his 40s when “Quiet Village” became a hit in 1959. Meanwhile, Ebersbach was looking for something new to round out his musicianship, having already recorded, composed, and played music all his life. His professionally trained ear appreciated exotica’s sumptuous composition—tribal percussion punctuating the resplendent tones of a vibraphone, sultry vocals backed by birdcalls. A particular favorite of Ebersbach was the sweet chrome undulations of the kyi waing, a Burmese gong circle he arranged to have smuggled to Hawai‘i (allegedly, of course). With Denny’s blessing and mentorship, Don Tiki became a 21st century offering to the exotica gods of yore.

Kandell and Ebersbach conceived the group as a studio project, planning to merely produce good music and then dispense it. They weren’t even certain who would listen. “We never wanted to be a retro or tribute band, we were just genuinely inspired by the music,” Kandell says. “We were two older guys, not interested in doing a tour or live show thing.” But exotica music, like an exotic animal, is best let loose. After the success of their first album, The Forbidden Sounds of Don Tiki, released in 1997, Don Tiki went live.

Pooling their day-job talents (Kandell runs an advertising agency and Ebersbach heads a music studio), the pair enlisted a 12-member corps of musicians and vocalists for the band’s first gig in, of all places, Ohio. “We had no idea what to expect,” says Kandell. As it turned out, the venue, the Kahiki, was a massive, canoe-shaped restaurant, a Polynesian palace of kitsch, and a veritable tiki mecca. Staged in front of a gigantic stone tiki with glowing red eyes and a roaring fireplace mouth, the music set commenced with a pre-taped welcome from Denny. Seated at the helm of his grand piano, Denny played the first notes of “Quiet Village” before Don Tiki joined in live. “It was legendary,” says Kandell, marveling at the memory.

Buoyed by this debut, Kandell and Ebersbach (who moonlight as “Fluid Floyd” and “Perry Coma” respectively) maintained Don Tiki’s upward trajectory with small local gigs and a second album. Ebersbach recalls the first inkling of the band’s burgeoning impact in 2001. While writing a track for Magic of Polynesia, a popular Waikīkī stage show, Ebersbach was approached by renowned choreographer Tunui Tully. Tully was intrigued by this new music he had come across. “Do you know Don Tiki?” he asked Ebersbach, who laughed before replying, “You’re looking at him.” Tully became an integral part of the Don Tiki team, increasing the live show’s wow factor with dazzling displays of costumes and choreography. “It was unlike any Polynesian show,” says Alaana Seno, a professional dancer and veteran Don Tiki performer. “It was euphoric.”

With an ever-increasing following of showgoers-turned-converts, Don Tiki’s fanbase carries the tiki torch high into 2017. Cheeky self-awareness also helps the group skirt any cultural appropriation controversy. Kandell notes the very different tiki paradigms at play: one, the authentic tiki, or ki‘i, the reverent god forms of Polynesian culture; and the other, Don Tiki’s tiki, the highly stylized mascots of exotica’s glib pop culture. Recognizing the “art” in artificial, Don Tiki then gleefully elevates it.

This is not to say that Don Tiki isn’t blithe about critical perceptions. Moments before its debut at Hawaiian Hut 15 years ago, Kandell, Don Tiki’s congenial host, peeked out at the audience from behind the curtain, and panicked upon seeing esteemed cultural practitioner Manu Boyd among the crowd. Would Boyd condemn the show as yet another lewd perpetuation of Hawaiian stereotypes—the hula maidens, grass huts, and tribal beats? When asked about that night, Boyd laughs. Obviously, the show was not an authentic portrayal of Polynesian culture, he explains. It was pure romanticism, fantastical stuff. “Don Tiki is what it is,” Boyd says. “Just a lot of fun.”

Fun indeed. More camp than kitsch, Don Tiki’s tongue-in-cheek manner is apparent even in its own name. When asked its origin, Kandell chuckles. Don Tiki is a play on Kon-Tiki, the 1947 Norwegian ocean raft expedition that attempted to prove that South Americans populated Polynesia. Explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s theory was decried by Polynesian scholars who pointed to Polynesian cultures’ highly sophisticated, star-based navigation system. “So we decided to set the story straight,” Kandell says, deadpan. “It wasn’t the Kon-Tiki. It was Don Tiki, as in Don Ho, navigating via mai tais.”

It’s not too hard to imagine the great Don Ho, fellow Hawai‘i entertainer, raising a toast to such a tale, with one minor correction: He would have navigated with a Chivas Regal, not a mai tai. Suck ’em up, suck ’em up!

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Black and white photo of Don Ho and The Aliis band

Don Ho, center, and his backing group, The Aliis, comprised of Joe Mundo, Benny Chong, Manny Lagodlagod, Rudy Aquino, and Al Akana, in 1966. Image courtesy of Adrienne Liva Sweeney.

Black and white photo of Don Ho and Nancy Sinatra on stage

Don Ho’s wildly popular namesake show was a must-see for any visitor to the islands, including Frank Sinatra’s eldest daughter, Nancy, shown here in 1972. Image courtesy of Adrienne Liva Sweeney.

Black and white photo of Don Ho wearing a lei
Black and white photo of Don Ho and Nancy Sinatra on stage

Don Ho’s wildly popular namesake show was a must-see for any visitor to the islands, including Frank Sinatra’s eldest daughter, Nancy, shown here in 1972. Image courtesy of Adrienne Liva Sweeney.

Black and white photo of Don Ho wearing a lei
Lloyd Kandell and Kit Ebersbach sitting at a bar

Lloyd Kandell and Kit Ebersbach, who moonlight as “Fluid Floyd” and “Perry Coma” respectively, are the creative forces behind Don Tiki, a neo-exotica music group summoning the mysterious sounds of the islands into the 21st century.

Brown Wooden Tiki Carving
Lloyd Kandell and Kit Ebersbach sitting at a bar

Lloyd Kandell and Kit Ebersbach, who moonlight as “Fluid Floyd” and “Perry Coma” respectively, are the creative forces behind Don Tiki, a neo-exotica music group summoning the mysterious sounds of the islands into the 21st century.

Brown Wooden Tiki Carving
Colorful Tiki mugs on a shelf
Vintage Tiki Hut Signage
Colorful Wooden Tiki Mask
Lloyd Kandell and Kit Ebersbach sitting at a bar

Exotica music became the consummate soundtrack of Hawai‘i, as Americans gleefully granted themselves permission to tap into their primal sides.

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