Interview With Don Ho

MJ: Thank you for joining us tonight.

DH: Okay Mark.

MJ: You just finished a very long show. How do you feel?

DH: I feel great. Feel great. It's very invigorating doing this.

MJ: We all know you're a good singer but I never knew you were this

funny.

DH: Oh, am I funny?

MJ: Have you always been this funny or is this a recent phenomenon?

DH: Well, I didn't know I was that funny.

MJ: Tell us about the people that attend your shows these days?

What's the average Don Ho fan like who comes to your shows?

DH: They're very intelligent people. And they're very...they're

loyal people. They're looking for...they're people as you saw tonight, you

saw from 30's on up, right? To the fella who was married 58 years. So how

would you judge that?

MJ: Well, you have a very romantic group of people and you sort of

encourage that. You talk about the wedding anniversaries. When did that

start in your shows?

DH: Always...have always done the wedding song. That song when I

was going to high school, school for...Kamehameha school....school for

Hawaiian children.... It was just incredibly beautiful when the whole

student body was singing, all the boys and all the girls. So when I came

to Waikiki and performed just me and another girl singing it, It was never

as beautiful as when it's done in a whole group like that. If you've ever

heard that then you know what I'm talking about. It's like the angels from

heaven. It's just beautiful. So the wedding song is very much from my high

school days right up until now. 1

MJ: Most of us haven't been to a concert where a performer asks

some questions, like tonight. When did you start doing that, and why do

you do that?

DH: What?

MJ: Well, you know how you ask your people in the audience

questions and you talk back and forth. When did you start doing that and

why do you do that?

DH: I've always done that. It's stems from when I first

entertained in my mother's cafe in the country. The country is over the

mountains. This is Waikiki, you go over the mountain and that's where I

come from. My mother's little cafe was there. When I started entertaining

the people in the country would talk to me from the audience, so we would

talk to them, too, so it was like, this is really Hawaiian country style

where you're sitting in the living room kind of thing.

MJ: When you were younger I'm sure you played to large houses

where you weren't able to do that. Was that...

DH: Oh no no, we could go in an arena, set up in the middle of the

arena, the band would be around me, I'd be up a little higher sitting on my

organ and we could.... we'd take a great deal of pride in being able to

take that arena, maybe 15,000 people, 5,000 people, 3,000 people, whatever,

and making it like a little living room. See, it doesn't matter how big

the place is, it's what you do. It doesn't matter how big it is.

MJ: How did you get started in show business.

DH: I started in show business pure out of ...when I got out of

the air force, I came home to run my mother's business, the restaurant and

the cafe, and my mother's customers were all either dead or gone or

whatever and I had no customers when I took over and my dad said, "Son

you'd better do something because there's no customers." He said, "Why

don't you go make some music." I said, "You've got to be kidding, Dad."

Anyway, I did. So we started a little group

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like that and that's how it started. In four years we were already making

records, which was... I was surprised because I had no music background,

you know.

MJ: You worked with Elvis? What was that like?

DH: No, Elvis and I were just friends. We never worked together.

MJ: But he recorded some of your songs.

DH: He recorded one of our first hits, "I Remember You." And he

made it a hit for himself, it made number one in America. You know Elvis,

anything he sang it made number one, you know, it was, he was an awesome

person.

MJ: When did you decide you wanted to get involved in music? Were

you a kid growing up saying, "I want to be a musician, I want to sing?"

DH: Every kid in Hawaii has a pleasure of music, Ukelele,

guitar...Hawaiian songs are simple songs. But we all, practically

everybody in Hawaii plays the Ukelele and so it was no big thing. My

interest in music was not as an entertainer. It was just mainly to...like

anybody else, be able to sing in the garage if there was a party and all of

that stuff, you know. I had no interest in entertaining.

MJ: What kind of music did you grow up listening to?

DH: I grew up in war years with a jukebox, and before that...let's

see during the...I was maybe eleven or twelve or thirteen, fourteen during

the war years and the jukebox was sort of like my teacher. The juke box

played constantly, and the juke box had a lot of the big band sounds: Bing

Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ink Spots, Andrew Sisters, Hawaiian songs, Hawaiian

singers doing a mumbo jumbo of music on the juke box. In Hawaii, you had

Hawaiian music mixed up with all the great hits from America, see, so and

as a kid all that stuff was pumped in my ear, right? So when I got to be

an adult all that stuff was in my head. You know what I mean, you grew up

with it. That would be, more than anything else, the big influence in my

music, the jukebox.

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MJ: What about today? Are there any groups of today that you listen to,

or admire?

DH: Nationally you mean? I do like the harmonies of Boyz to Men.

I do like the music from the... what's that group that's from, what is it,

Sweden or someplace?

MJ: Ace of Base?

DH: No

MJ: Abba.

DH: Abba, yeah. I liked Abba, when they were going. I like all

kinds of groups. I liked a lot of Latin, like Jazz. I like the great

singers like Frank Sinatra Benny Strait, Tony Bennett, Barbara Streisand,

and some of these younger people. All the great ones. They emerge out,

you know, the really greats.

MJ: Can you talk about... is there such thing as a Hawaii sound?

Or what are it's origins?

DH: Hawaii sounds are...The origins of the Hawaiin sound comes

from the introduction of the guitar by the Mexicans. The introduction of

the Ukelele by the Portuguese, with the introduction of church music from

the missionaries, with the different culture groups that come here. All of

that put together is kind of a hybrid music. That's pretty much what

Hawaiian music is.

MJ: What about the message and the feeling. Where does that come

from?

DH: A lot of Hawaiian music is about the beauty of the islands,

the flowers, the... a lot of love songs. A lot of songs, just like any

other great songs from any country, love songs are pretty much... a lot of

our songs, yeah.

MJ: Are you touring these days, off of the islands?

DH: We just got back from a week at Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. I

do special things, like I do commercials for different people. Just did a

movie called "Joe's Apartment." It should be out.... MTV movie, should be

out maybe after Christmas

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or sometime then, maybe during Christmas, I don't know. We did a

commercial at...went to Las Vegas, did a commercial for the Hilton chains.

So I go off and do special things like that. Whenever.....I can't get away

too much because I'm committed to the people that visit Hawaii here. They

come here and I just can't run off and just leave. So we go maybe once or

twice a year.

MJ: How many nights a year do you play here?

DH: Five nights, yeah, five nights. We'll have to go to six

nights pretty soon. But like I said, this is a very happy time of the day

for me personally because I don't know if you know it but music is very

healing, you know, and also people laughing that's very healing and then

so in a sense we're in the healing business. People laugh and sing and

forget their troubles to feel good. It's healthy, it's healthy. So it's

healthy for me, healthy for my customers and so we look forward to coming

here every night.

MJ: For many black Americans the Negro spirituals were healing

songs for slavery. What is Hawaiian music a healing for?

DH: Hawaiian music is like any other, all kinds of, all music is

healing because if you listen.... that's why children always have the radio

going because it makes them feel good. Sometimes music can be irritating

if it's too noisy, but music has a wonderful healing effect on people. I

know it calms down my children and you know, anybody I know. And our show,

it just puts everybody on a common ground mentally, everybody feels good.

Everybody sings together, everybody laughs together and that, there is

something to that, that could be said for maybe in the real world out

there, you can apply music to some of the problems that happen in the

world, you know what what I mean? There's so much problems out there maybe

there might be a way to figure out how music and a lot of laughter between

the

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politicians of the countries and all of that somehow maybe music might be

the force that can bring peace to the world, I don't know. I don't know.

MJ: Does that mean that you're going to run for governor?

DH: No.

DH: I think that my influences have been people like Johnny

Carson, Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan, or all of the variety shows that were on.

But that's why our show is a variety show, you know, so in order to last

long in the entertainment business I believe, is you have to have variety.

Because I think that people get bored with one thing all the time. They

would get bored, you know, even seeing Frank Sinatra, three, four, five

times so you know, you have different things happen the show and I

learned.... my influence has been watching those guys. And I think that

I'm more like Johnny Carson, but I sing a little, that's all, that's the

only the difference. Johnny doesn't sing. Johnny is really a genius host,

you know, I worked with Johnny several times. He's very very quick and

very... I don't know if any of these guys can be as good as Johnny, the

Letterman's or the Jay Leno's, Johnny was great.

MJ: Can you talk a little bit about your early years growing up

here and your family life?

DH: My early years was growing up in a place called Kaneohe, in

the country. It was carrot patches, and it was very country, going to

country school, walking to school, you know, you don't have to, there were

no cars, just walk to school and get a lot of exercise. Then I went, as an

eighth grader I went to a private school. It was a Hawaiian military

school. And so, I stayed in that school, boarded in that school for five

years boarded in that school for five years. And that was my family so to

speak. It was a boys school. And after that, I just went to college and

after that and I flew airplanes in the air force and after that I just did

this and been doing this ever since,

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but my childhood was pretty much a beautiful, growing up in the country.

It was beautiful there. It was just growing up in the cafe, the family

business there, helping my mother cooking and cleaning and mixing poi and

becoming the Jack-of -all-trades by working with my parents....cooking,

waiter, bar tender, whatever you know. Become a pretty handyman.

MJ: How many records have you recorded over the years?

DH: I have no idea...fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, I

don't know, somewhere around there. I have no idea. I have maybe five or

six really good ones, seven, eight maybe good ones, the rest of 'em junk.

Lot of black market records are out there, lot of people black market my

stuff and I don't even worry about it.

MJ: You are recording now for your own label, Honey Records, is

that right?

DH: Yeah, my mother's name is Honey.

MJ: That's what I was going to ask you about. Do you see a

successor to Don Ho on the islands?

DH: Ohhh, plenty, plenty. I'm nobody special. Plenty. Plenty

great kids here. Plenty great talent here.

MJ: You're very generous in sharing the stage with a lot of young

talent. Some artists might feel threatened, but you don't, obviously, why

is that?

DH: I'm a great believer in that you've gotta surround your people

with... to be successful, you gotta have people around you that are better

than you, you know what I'm saying? You gotta have a great crew. They've

gotta be better than you. The only way you're gonna get any good, you

gotta learn from somebody better than you, right? The same way they go

play golf. You'll never be any good golfer if you go play with a banana,

right? You gotta play with a good golfer, you wanna be a good golfer. So,

I always surround myself with people who are better than me, and it doesn't

matter whether they sing better than me or they're better looking than me,

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or they're younger than me or what. It doesn't matter because I'm the guy

that gives the orders, you know. In a sense I'm still that aircraft

commander you understand? They're my crew, and you want nothing but the

best in your crew, especially if you're flying an airplane.

MJ: Now some of your crew has been with you for 20, more than 20

years.

DH: Yeah. yeah. yeah. They look pretty young, huh? They look

pretty good some of them, yeah? They just don't wanna leave. A lot of 'em

have graduated but these kids they just don't want to leave, they're happy.

They just wanna be a part of the show.

MJ: I've been hearing that you have a very very large family, is

that so?

DH: Not really. You talking about all the Ho's? The clan? Oh

maybe a couple thousand, maybe.

MJ: How many children do you have?

DH: I have 10. 7 boys...I mean,7 girls, 3 boys.

MJ: Are any of them musicians?

DH: They all have a music inclination. My daughters all sing

good. All my daughters sing good. I have a son that sings great, about 8

years old. I have a daughter that sings better than all of us. She's 14.

She's really an incredible singer, but she really doesn't want to sing.

She just wants to do plays in high school, you know what I mean? But one

of these days...she comes here to sing once in a while, maybe on a Friday

night like that. Yeah, people that know she's coming, they all want to

come hear her sing. They don't want to hear me, they want to hear her

sing. There's something about the young, working with youngsters and, just

this this certain beauty and their innocence, you know, when they perform.

MJ: You were talking earlier about going to school here, you went

to school on the mainland for awhile.

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DH: I went up to Springfield college for one year. Springfield college

was the number one school in America for physical education. It was where

basketball originated. It was a, an incredible school for people who

wanted to be athletic directors, coaches, and so forth like that. So when

I was in high school I was kind of an athlete. So my principal, suggested

that I go to Springfield College. I had never heard of it. But that was

the first time I went to the mainland. Landed in Hartford. The trees

were all beautiful colors you know. The leaves falling here and there,

you know. Our leaves are always green. Over there the leaves are

beautiful during this...during this time, in October, but in December in

turns into a freezer. So I couldn't take the cold so after a year I came

home. I drove, me and my friend drove all the way across from

Massachusetts back in an old 19...in a 1929 Lincoln that broke down in

Nebraska. We had to catch the bus from there. It was a nice trip right

across. It was very educational.

MJ: I have to ask you a question about that telephone you were

putting to your ear during the show. What are you doing?

DH: I was talking to Elvis. No, I'm talking to my technicians.

MJ: How is Elvis?

Question related to touring in Japan.

DH: We did a big tour there one time. Somebody took me to the

Imperial Hotel, the Palace Hotel, Miyako in those days, what's another

club, went to a military base over there, some embassy place there. We

played one dinner. The next year we went back we did.... Kosei

NenkinHall.Kosei Nenkin hall still there?

MJ:Kosei Nenkin, yeah.

DH: We played Palace during Christmas time. We did a private for

the Osano family. We did a private showing for them, her company, at the

Imperial or someplace. Went over there and did a show for the Hiroshima

thing, they had a festival there. 9

MJ: In '73.

DH: '89, I think,

MJ: Oh, 89.

DH: But it would be nice to go back there. Great food. My good

friend, Osano, she owns all the hotels here. She owns the Moaano Hotel,

the Raw Hawaiin Hotel, the Kaihalani Hotel, the Surf Rider Hotel. Her

husband came to Hawaii and bought the first, .. He was the first one to buy

hotels here. And they're very successful here. They're still very

successful here. They have hotels all over Japan and all over the world.

But it's nice to go to Japan because when I go there she's always such a

wonderful hostess. She takes me to her favorite eating places. And after

all what is Japan without going to the great eating places, right? In

Japan, right?

MJ: Very expensive.

DH: I know. Go eat with her...She's got her own what you call,

tea houses, in her hotels. They go to eat...they have dishes I've never

seen before, the Japanese. MJ: Small portions, huh?

DH: Small portions. But it's real beautiful the way it's

presented, you know what I mean?

MJ: It doesn't make you full, though.

DH: No, no, but you know you gotta, respect and eat like a

gentleman really. You know and in Hawaii we eat with our hands a lot. So

we have to watch ourselves over there.

MJ: You were talking in your show about your son who has a candy

factory, a chocolate factory?

DH: My nephew.

MJ: Nephew.

DH: Candy factory in Kona

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MJ: So if we send all our viewers there they get... all 10 million of them

get ....

DH: They get free chocolate...

MJ: and your daughter is a ...

DH: She makes design dresses. She is making a new line for me,

really nice silk shirt with nice design on top, you know, a flower and

stuff like that.

MJ: Do all of your children live in Hawaii?

DH: Yeah.

MJ: How long is the show, is it about 2 hours? Pretty much every

night?

DH: No. An hour and a half to two hours maybe. I try to keep it

to an hour and a half, but it just runs over every time. ...Sixty five can

you believe that.

MJ: How long have you been married?

DH: I don't know. 1950 '51? How many years is that?

MJ: '51, uh?

DH: '51. How many years is that?

MJ: 44 years. 44 years?

DH: 44.

MJ: What's changed about the..., what's changed the most?

DH: Well, I'll tell you what's changed the most. All this

tourism.