Alfred Apaka - Aloha, Apaka!

Alfred Apaka with Orchestra directed by Axel Stordahl and the Hawaiian Village Serenaders.

I read somewhere that if Don Ho was the Elvis of Hawaii then Alfred Apaka was the Bing Crosby of Hawaii. I have absolutely no idea what that means.

I was just reading his bio on allmusic.com and it says: "Although many predicted that he would become a successful mainstream vocalist, Apaka took a different route when he convinced multimillionaire Henry Kaiser to build a hotel, The Hawaiian Village, that included a showroom where he starred in his own extravagant revue. Apaka's energetic performances soon made the hotel an essential tourist attraction, and his popularity continued to grow."

So Alfred got Henry Kaiser to build The Hawaiian Village resort (which later became the Hilton Hawaiian Village) that featured a showroom in which Alfred performed and in which Rene Paulo and his group recorded "Beyond Happiness" (third post below this one) a couple of years after Mr Apaka passed away of a heart attack at the young age of 41. Now that's a little bit of blogging synchronicity. I'd wager that Rene Paulo became the feature act after Alfred passed on.

Ther first couple of tracks have a little excess surface noise but it gets better after that.

Aloha, Apaka!