Click on the first letter of a song title for index
A visitor to Hawaii in the 20th century probably took home photos, lei, a monkeypod bowl
carved in the shape of a pineapple and an aloha shirt. These items are faded or long gone, but the memory
of a haunting melody played by a group of Island musicians and the incomparable beauty of a hula dancer
will be with them forever. Musicians and dancers at hotels,
restaurants and clubs made a vast contribution to what tourists think of as Hawaii. These performers were the
most visible representatives of Hawaii to our visitors.
Hawaiian musicians and dancers carry our music and culture to all corners of the globe and to people who have
never visited the Islands. Hawaiian-themed restaurants and showrooms on the mainland are mostly gone now,
but for decades they spread the beauty of Hawaii
and the aloha of a truly unique culture. The Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills, Trader Vics' restaurants
around the world, Don the Beachcomber's, The Islander, The Castaway, Latitude 20, The Seven Seas, the
Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove, the Mural Room at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel, , the Tonga Room
at the Fairmont, New York's Hotel Lexington's Hawaiian Room--are all mostly memories, and with them the
performers who graced these establishments.
