tiny bubbles float toward the grand horizon

Another ubiquitous figure from my television-saturated childhood passed away on Saturday. Don Ho was more than a musician. He was the de facto cultural ambassador to the Hawaiian islands to generations of Americans in the continental US (a role later assumed with considerably less aplomb by Jack Lord’s hair and Tom Selleck’s mustache) whose window to the paradise islands was a cathode ray tube.

When my mother flew out to meet my father in Honolulu during a leave from his service in Vietnam, Don Ho was a passenger on the flight. It didn’t surprise me in the least when she told me. Whether you were a member of the Brady family, Fred Sanford, or an eighteen year old war bride, visiting Hawaii in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s meant a special guest appearance by Don Ho.

Aloha, Don.

Don Ho – Shock the Monkey (from When Pigs Fly, 2002) – When Pigs Fly is a very odd compilation of covers, and not in the way the label presumably intended. Legitimately strange song renditions, such as this track or Lesley Gore’s version of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” share the disc with less idiosyncratic selections (Roy Clark’s “What a Wonderful World,” or The Oak Ridge Boys’ take on Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son”).

My wife likes this version better than the Peter Gabriel original, and I’m inclined to agree with her.