Nearly every day, a reader will ask me a question about something historical. Sometimes I know the answer. Sometimes I don’t and I have to research it a bit, which I love doing.
This week I thought I knew the answer to a reader’s question, but it turned out to be much more complicated (and interesting) than I imagined.
It was about the song “Mr. Sun Cho Lee,” recorded by Keola and Kapono Beamer in 1975. It’s a funny song, mostly in pidgin, about Hawaii’s unusual race relations. Catharine Langmuir asked me who wrote it.
I first heard it at the Territorial Tavern on the corner of Bishop Street and Ala Moana Boulevard.
The Territorial Tavern was a magical place. Bob Hampton, Ed Greene and Charley Thompson were the owners. Dinners were about $6. Drinks were $1.10.
Hampton felt the room needed music to fill its 23-foot-high ceiling. He hired Keola and Kapono Beamer, and later Olomana, Country Comfort, the Brothers Cazimero, the Sons of Hawaii and three comedians who called themselves Booga Booga.
Soon there was a renaissance taking place in Hawaiian music, and the Tavern was at its epicenter. It was the first place I saw the Beamer brothers play slack key guitar, which was growing in popularity.
Their songs, such as “This Is Our Island Home,” “The Real Old Style,” “Beauty of Mauna Kea” and “Sweet Okole,” were an interesting blend of youthful, traditional and contemporary Hawaiian music. Their biggest hit, “Honolulu City Lights,” was still three years away.
I was under the impression that Eaton “Bob” Magoon Jr. co-wrote “Mr. Sun Cho Lee” with singer Ed Kenney. They co-wrote “Numbah One Day of Christmas” as well.
Research
I turned to Tony Todaro’s “The Golden Years of Hawaiian Entertainment, 1874-1974.” Magoon has a page in the book with many of the songs he wrote. To my surprise, “Mr. Sun Cho Lee” is not listed as one of them.
I looked in the newspaper archives and found it first mentioned in 1962, when the Beamer brothers were 10 to 12 years old. Singer Kenney was the only one mentioned.
The song was recorded on their 1975 album “Hawaii’s Keola & Kapono Beamer.” It credits Magoon as its writer.
Different versions
I looked on YouTube and found Kenney’s 1968 version of “Mr. Sun Cho Lee.” I had never heard it before and expected it would be much like the Beamer brothers’ rendition. I was very surprised at how different the two versions are.
Magoon and Kenney’s 1968 version is mostly about the title character, Sun Cho Lee. The first verse is:
“Mr. Sun Cho Lee
Who has a lychee tree
But he no gives something to me.”
The next verses explore his fondness for opihi, crack seed candy, chop suey, laundry and money. It only mentions other races in its introduction.
Beamer Brothers version
I asked Keola Beamer how their version of “Mr. Sun Cho Lee” developed.
“Eaton Magoon is a distant cousin,” Keola said, “through my grandfather’s brother. We called him Uncle Bob. Ed Kenney was a calabash cousin who was very helpful to us when our music careers were beginning.
“Kapono and I were looking for songs to record. We were aware of Magoon and Kenney’s earlier version of ‘Mr. Sun Cho Lee,’ but I think serendipity played a role. Sometimes tunes find their own way, as if it was searching for a place to go, and we grabbed it by the hand.
“We asked Uncle Bob about recording it. He said we could do anything we wanted with it. I’d say it was a collaboration between us and him.”
The Beamers’ version starts with, “Mr. Sun Cho Lee. Get plenty lychee. Get plenty lychee, but he no gives to me. And he’s just a mean, old Pake man.”
“Pake” (pah-kay) is a pidgin term for Chinese in Hawaii.
The Beamers then look at several other races, and what each has plenty of. Mr. Conrad Jones has plenty swimming pools. Mr. Maximo Concepcion has plenty fighting chickens. Mr. Kazuo Tanaka has plenty camera supplies.
After mentioning what each has plenty of, they add, “But he no gives to me. And he’s just a mean, old (Haole/Filipino/Japanese) man.”
Keola said he and Kapono would write one verse and then just burst out laughing. “Half the time we were writing. Half the time we were laughing hysterically.”
Did the Beamers consider including other groups, like Koreans or Portuguese? “Everybody was telling Portagee jokes in those days,” Keola said. “So we thought, they’re having a hard enough time. No need to kick them while they were down.”
They varied the concept in the fifth stanza to write about “Miss Momi Lomi Lomi.” She had plenty experience, they wrote, but “she no experience me. And she’s just a mean, old cocktail waitress.”
Was there a real Momi Lomi Lomi, I asked?
“Oh, hell yes,” Keola replied. “She was a beautiful cocktail waitress. I thought she was amazing.
“Anything beyond that, I’m afraid, will have to remain a secret.”
Did she know you wrote about her in a song? “I think she knew,” he answered.
The song then returned to their earlier pattern with Mr. Kamakawiwo‘ole, who had plenty nothing. “He takes it out on me. And he’s just a mean, old Hawaiian man.”
For the last verse, they summarized:
“One t’ing I wen’ notice ’bout dis place
“All us guys we tease da other race
It’s amazing we can live in da same place”
Gastro-diplomacy
“The whole thing is really about racial harmony and diversity,” Keola believes. “And the fact that we’re so blessed in Hawaii because, I think of it as — and this is going to sound a little weird — gastro-diplomacy.”
What is gastro-diplomacy? Keola said many of our racial groups found themselves living and working near each other on plantations. Working friends might invite each other to their house for dinner.
“And so you go over and you enjoy their food, and then you invite them over to your house. Food, like music, is one of the things that brings people together.
“And pretty soon we learned to laugh, not at each other, but with each other. And that’s what we were trying to share, the wonderful, unique racial harmony that Hawaii possesses. We’re so blessed to live in this multicultured world.”
Perfect balance
I remember hearing the Beamers perform “Mr. Sun Cho Lee” live at the Territorial Tavern. A song about the various ethnic groups that make up our population could easily offend any or all of them. Or it could be so bland that it said nothing.
“Mr. Sun Cho Lee” found that perfect balance in the minuscule middle. I thought it wonderfully captured the racial sentiments in Hawaii.
Keola said one reason it worked was because “we included our own race.”
The song has a catchy tune, and its pidgin lyrics are so impeccably crafted that they make us laugh at ourselves. I felt it was a great song then, and 49 years later it has held up, despite our society’s increasing sensitivity to “microaggressions” and “cancel culture.” It’s still a great song today.
I asked Keola whether anyone ever took offense. “The response has been very positive,” he recalled. “One guy got mad. ‘Why are you making fun of Filipinos?’
“We’re making fun of everybody,” Keola replied.
Hawaii Legends Tour
In the past few years, Keola and singer-songwriter Henry Kapono have been touring together. Their Hawaii Legends Tour sometimes includes “Mr. Sun Cho Lee.”
“I do the verses and he sings harmony, and we kid each other as we go along,” Keola said. “He graduated from Punahou and I graduated from Kamehameha, so we bring up our little high school rivalry in the middle of the song.
“When I sing the verse ‘and he’s just a mean, old haole man,’ I then add ‘Punahou’ in a quiet, high falsetto.
“And likewise, when we get to ‘and he’s just a mean, old Hawaiian man,’ he sings ‘Kamehameha’ in the same, quiet falsetto. It’s fun.”
Keola has a mainland winter concert tour with slack key guitarist Jeff Peterson that begins in January. Keola and Henry Kapono will resume touring in 2026.
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
