One of Hawaii’s top entertainers is Danny Kaleikini, 78. I had lunch with him last month, and he told me some of his stories.
Kaleikini grew up humbly in Papakolea. He was 4 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. “We saw the planes flying overhead and could see the bombing.
“My father yelled and got everyone under the house. He took the mattresses off the beds and put them on the floor on top of us.”
“Dad was in the 298th Hawaii National Guard. He was a rubbish man for the city and county. Mom was a cocktail waitress at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We had very humble beginnings. Nine kids in the family: three sisters, five brothers and me.
“We shined shoes and sold newspapers. If I sold three newspapers, I made 5 cents. I was so proud of that nickel. On a good day my brother and I would each make 40 cents, which we’d give to our mother.”
Danny was turned down by Kamehameha Schools, so he took the test to get into Roosevelt, an English standard school. “My grandfather told me, if I came upon a word I didn’t know, cut it into smaller pieces.
“The first word on the test was ‘aspiration.’ It was the biggest word I ever saw, but I did what my grandfather said. ‘If you have headache, take two,’ Danny said he wrote, laughing.
“Ray Kinney, the great bandleader, mentored me in the 1960s. I was working as a busboy at the Waikiki Sands.
“‘Oh, you sing?’ he asked me. ‘Come up and sing a song,’ he’d tell me. I’d pick up $2-$3 in tips. Wow, I thought. This is so unreal. I was so happy.”
It was a little crazy, Danny feels, to have the busboy sing. “They basically told me to wipe the table, go sing a song, wipe the table.
“Kinney took me aside and said, ‘Young man, you have a talent. Come with me to the Royal Hawaiian and I’ll teach you how to select and sing Hawaiian songs.’
“Hilo Hattie mentored me, too. I was emceeing the show. She said, ‘Danny, where you learn to speak?’
“I was so pidgin English. I’d tell the audience, ‘We gonna bring on da girls and they gonna whack the two sticks together, they gonna do the hula for you guys.’
“She said, ‘Danny, if you going to speak, you have to speak English. Nobody can understand what you’re saying. Only you know what you’re saying.’
“I talking English,” Kaleikini retorted. “What you talking about?”
“‘Young man,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, but you sound junk!’
“She took me aside and gave me many good lessons. She was an English schoolteacher and taught me to talk the correct way. They were my mentors. I got to learn and never forgot. I was very grateful.
“I started at the Kahala Hilton in 1967. I had been studying music education in my third year at UH when they offered me my own Polynesian show.
“Hardly anyone came to the show initially, so I took a hula dancer and an ukulele player to Waikiki, down by the wall and played. We’d tell people, ‘Come to the Kahala, we have a beautiful Hawaiian show.’
“I was just starting to make my name when I came to the Kahala.
“Fortunately, I was invited to the expo in Osaka, Japan. I was there with Jessie Takamiyama (the great sumo wrestler from Maui).
“Because of it I became known in Japan. I was invited to do many shows in Japan, and I worked with all the big stars there.
“I learned to speak Japanese. That really helped me. The Japanese really love Hawaii. They love hula. It’s fantastic.
“After that the Japanese started coming to my show, and I was sold out every night.
“My family used to come sit on the beach and watch. My dad came every Friday, sat by a coconut tree, with a lau hala papale (hat) and his jacket on. He had a six-pack of beer and pupus.
“And he’d sit there and watch the show. He would never come inside because he refused to pay the cover charge.
“So one night I said, ‘Aloha, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to meet my father. He taught me everything I know today. He doesn’t want to come in because he’s more comfortable outside under da coconut tree.’
“I want him to sing a song with me because he’s my teacher, he’s my kumu. A spotlight shone on us and we sang ‘O Makalapua’ together.
“I learned all my songs from my father and grandfather. They’d come home on Fridays and grab a six-pack, pupus and their ukulele, go in the backyard and start singing songs.
“We would sing all the old Hawaiian songs. Those are the precious family moments I’ll never forget.
“I’m very fortunate. God gave me a gift, and I never blew it with drugs or alcohol,” Kaleikini says.
“I traveled the world with music. Hawaiian music. I went to Greece on a Hawaii Visitors Bureau promotion and played Hawaiian music. I was akamai enough to pick up a few phrases in Greek. The audience went nuts.
“Another time, I was riding on a gondola in Venice with a bunch of friends. We asked the gondolier if he would sing a song. ‘No sing,’ he replied. ‘Only in the movies.’
“So I got up and sang an Italian song,” Danny says. “I had learned a few Italian songs when I was at UH. People on bridges nearby yelled ‘aloha’ to us. They love Hawaii in Europe.
“I was in Cuba performing when the revolution took place in 1959. Military police took over our hotel, and Raul Castro himself showed up. ‘Viva Castro!’ we all yelled.
“Because of music I’ve seen the world. Because of music I could connect with people wherever they were. With my ukulele I was in business. Music is a universal language.”
Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
