I created a quiz about Hawaiian music and musicians to keep some of my friends and readers entertained during this social distancing time.

In putting it together, I realized I had a lot of little-known stories about the subject and thought they’d make for an interesting column.

Charles E. King

One of my mother’s favorites was the “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” written by Charles E. King in 1926.

King wrote it while convalescing in a Honolulu hospital, for his operetta, “Prince of Hawaii.” His friends joked he should go back into the hospital so he could write another song like it.

King says he never called it the “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” and the title “Ke Kali Nei Au” means “where are you?” or “waiting for thee,” he said.

The “Hawaiian Wedding Song” title came along years later because it was so often sung at weddings.

King said he didn’t mind that people insisted on calling it the “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” but he always asserted it was actually the call of one lover to another.

Reader Mike Green said “Ke Kali Nei Au” would usually be translated as something like “I am waiting” (for you, presumably).

“Auhea wali no” is a more wistful “Where are you” in poetic Hawaiian — not an outright “Where you stay?” Green says.

Andy Williams was the first to record it with English lyrics, in 1959. It rose on the U.S. charts to No. 2 and was the theme song of his television show until he sang “Moon River” at the 1962 Academy Awards. It became a runaway hit and replaced “Hawaiian Wedding Song” as his TV theme.

Alfred Apaka Jr.

“Alfred Apaka possessed one of the most remarkable voices to ever come out of Hawaii,” historian George Kanahele said.

During the 1940s and ’50s, Apaka, called “The Golden Voice of Hawaii,” was our most famous entertainer, and his show was a must-see for all visitors.

Apaka was the most influential local performer of his time, setting the standard for all modern Hawaiian music. His voice, masculine good looks and personality truly helped put Henry Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village Hotel on the map.

I’ve written several times about him, but recently found this anecdote from 1960.

Newsman Bob Krauss wrote about Apaka following his untimely death from a heart attack at age 40.

Krauss said he was at a recording session in Webley Edwards’ studio. “I had come down to hear Alfred cut his first rec­ord with his father, Alfred Apaka Sr. They were going to record a duet.

“Alfred was relaxed as usual, but alert and competent, like the professional that he was,” Krauss said. “Not his father. Alfred Senior was as nervous as a high school girl going out on her first date. It was the first time Alfred Senior had ever made a recording.

“He explained this to everybody, over and over. Alfred would smile and say, ‘Don’t worry, Dad. Just relax. Let’s try it again.’ It was a fine, warm thing to see, a son encouraging his father gently and patiently but with pride.”

Sterling Mossman

A cop by day and a singer, dancer and comedian by night, Sterling Mossman was the emcee at the Queen’s Surf Barefoot Bar from 1952 until 1969 when the city closed it so the beach could be expanded.

Tony Todaro and Mary Johnston wrote a song in 1955 about and for Mossman, called the “Hula Cop Hop.”

Some of its lyrics said, “Don’t blow your horn, don’t blow your top, for here comes Sterling, the hula cop.”

Second verse: “Don’t run me down, don’t kill me dead, don’t make me look like J. Aku-head.”

(Note to younger readers and malihini: J. Aku-head is a reference to DJ Hal Lewis, aka Aku.)

“Sterling Mossman was the Barefoot Bar,” said Miyuki Hruby, of the Spencecliff restaurant company. “Mossman was a cop by day and an entertainer at night. He sang, danced the hula and was a comedian. He was a very versatile man.”

Joseph Kekuku

You probably don’t know the name Joseph Kekuku, but you know the sound he made. A hundred years ago he was considered to be Hawaii’s greatest guitarist. He is credited with creating the steel guitar.

The Kamehameha Schools student got the idea in 1893 when he placed a pocket comb on the fingerboard of his guitar. It produced a twang he liked.

He experimented with a pocketknife and, later, a thick piece of steel. Even better.

“It took me seven years to master the steel guitar,” Kekuku wrote. “In 1904, I came to the States and played in every theatre of renown from coast to coast.

“In 1918, I went to Europe for a tour of eight years duration and during this time, I played before kings and queens of different countries with the ‘Bird of Paradise Show.’”

“Though accidental, the invention of the steel guitar provided Hawaiian musicians with an instrument capable of interpreting not only the sounds of the trade winds and the seas caressing our shores, but also the expressions of the many moods of the Hawaiian soul,” Tony Todaro wrote in his book, “The Golden Years of Hawaiian Entertainment.”

Bette Midler

After Radford High School, Bette Midler got a minor role in the movie “Hawaii.” She parlayed that into a trip to New York where she was hired by the Continental Baths, a gay club, as a weekend entertainer for $50 a night.

She dazzled her audience with hits from the 1930s through the 1960s. Her piano man was a young, unknown Barry Manilow.

“I would stand at the top of a little staircase with a towel round my head,” Midler recalls, “and act out whacked-out movie heroines. I wasn’t there long, but I was there long enough to make a splash!”

Eddie Sherman described her as a “wild, young Carmen Miranda with a touch of Mae West.”

Atlantic Records released her first album, “The Divine Miss M,” in 1972. The album sold over 100,000 records its first month and included the hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

That led to movie roles, and my favorite performance of hers: When Johnny Carson retired from the “Tonight Show” in 1992, it was Bette who sang the emotional last song, “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road),” a fitting finale for the King of Late Night.

‘Sweet Okole’

One of my favorite Beamer Brothers songs at the Territorial Tavern in the 1970s was “Sweet Okole.”

Tavern owner Bob Hampton told me how the song developed.

“We had a waitress named Kiwi, who had a nice posterior. The bartender was inspired to make a drink called the ‘Sweet Okole.’ It had vodka, rum, Galliano, orange juice, pineapple juice, sweet and sour and a touch of grenadine. It came in a special glass you got to keep.”

The drink and waitress inspired the Beamers to write a song by the same name. Some of the lyrics say:

There’s many fine young men come into this tavern.

And you’d think that a glass of beer is what they’re after.

What do they want to take home with them tonight?

They want a sweeeet okole.

They want a sweeeet okole.

On that sweet note, I’ll stop. But that just barely scratches the surface of great stories about Hawaiian music. Have a favorite musician or story about them? If so, drop me a line.

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. I invite you to join at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!