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'Tiny Bubbles' Singer Don Ho Dies at 76
HONOLULU (AP) - Legendary crooner Don Ho, who
entertained tourists for decades wearing raspberry-tinted sunglasses and singing the catchy signature tune "Tiny
Bubbles," has died. He was 76.
He died Saturday morning of heart failure, publicist Donna Jung said.
Ho had suffered with heart problems for the past several years, and had a pacemaker installed last fall. In 2005,
he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand.
Promoter Tom Moffatt said he attended Ho's final show Thursday and Ho received a standing ovation. Afterward, Ho
reminisced about his many years in Waikiki and talked about how Judy Garland sang with him one night.
"Don was in great spirits," he said. "He was fine."
Ho entertained Hollywood's biggest stars and thousands of tourists for four decades. For many, no trip to Hawaii
was complete without seeing his Waikiki show - a mix of songs, jokes, double entendres, Hawaii history and audience
participation.
Shows usually started and ended with the same song, "Tiny Bubbles." Ho mostly hummed the song's swaying
melody as the audience enthusiastically took over the familiar lyrics: "Tiny bubbles/in the wine/make me happy/make
me feel fine."
"I hate that song," he often joked to the crowd. He said he performed it twice because "people my
age can't remember if we did it or not."
The son of bar owners, Ho broke into the Waikiki entertainment scene in the early 1960s and, except for short periods,
never left. Few artists are more associated with one place.
"Hawaii is my partner," Ho told The Associated Press in 2004.
Donald Tai Loy Ho, who was Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and German, was born Aug. 13, 1930, in Honolulu
and grew up in the then-rural countryside of Kaneohe.
In high school, he was a star football player and worked for a brief time in a pineapple cannery. After graduating
in 1949, he attended Springfield College in Massachusetts on an athletic scholarship. He grew homesick, returned
to the islands and ended up graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1953 with a degree in sociology.
Inspired by the U.S. military planes flying in and out of Hawaii during World War II, Ho joined the Air Force.
As the Korean War wound down, he piloted transport planes between Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu and Tokyo.
When he returned home and took over his parents' struggling neighborhood bar, Honey's, he put together a band and
started performing at his father's request.
"I had no intention of being an entertainer," Ho said. "I just played songs I liked from the radio,
and pretty soon that place was jammed. Every weekend there would be lines down the street."
Honey's became a happening place on Oahu, with other Hawaiian musicians stopping in for jam sessions. Ho began
to play at various spots in Hawaii, then had a breakout year in 1966, when appearances at the Coconut Grove in
Hollywood helped him build a mainland following, and the release of "Tiny Bubbles" gave him his greatest
recording success.
Soon he was packing places such as the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Stars such as Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis Jr.
and Frank Sinatra were known to be in the audience for Ho's shows.
Ho also became a television star, and hosted the "The Don Ho Show" on ABC from 1976-77. One of Ho's most
memorable TV appearances was a 1972 cameo on an episode of "The Brady Bunch."
"I've had too much fun all these years," he said in the 2004 interview. "I feel real guilty about
it."
Gov. Linda Lingle said Ho created a legacy that will inspire future generations of musicians in Hawaii.
"Hawaii has lost a true island treasure," she said. "He laid the foundation for the international
prominence Hawaii's music industry enjoys today."
Besides "Tiny Bubbles," his other well-known songs include "I'll Remember You,""With All
My Love," and the "Hawaiian Wedding Song."
In the final years of his life, Ho's heart problems couldn't keep him away from the stage. He was back performing
at the Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel on a limited schedule less than two months after his heart procedure in Thailand.
His final performance was Thursday, Jung said.
Ho is survived by his wife, Haumea, and 10 children, including Hoku, who sometimes performed with her father.
**********
Don Ho employed his talents as a middle-of-the-road pop singer and musical ambassador for
Hawaii to launch a mainland career that included half a dozen chart albums, numerous television appearances, and
engagements at top venues starting in the mid-'60s. He was born in Kakaako, a small neighborhood in Honolulu on
the island of Oahu in Hawaii and grew up in the city of Kaneohe, also on Oahu. After a stint in the Air Force,
he took over a cocktail lounge in Kaneohe named Honey's, after his mother. There, he started a band, eventually
called the Aliis, with himself as singer and organist. In 1962, he moved to the Oahu resort district of Waikiki,
where he played in a nightclub called Duke's. There he began to come to the attention of the mainland entertainment
business. He was signed to Reprise Records, which released his debut album, Don Ho Show, in 1965. In 1966, he made
his debut at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, an engagement followed by others at such high-profile locations
as the Sands in Las Vegas, Harrah's at Lake Tahoe, the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Americana Hotel's Royal
Box in New York. He also began turning up as a guest on network TV talk shows. Meanwhile, his records began to
sell. His second album, a live collection called Don Ho -- Again!, reached the charts in March 1966, but it was
the release of "Tiny Bubbles" that fall which really broke him in record stores. The single placed in
the pop and the easy listening charts, stimulating sales of a Tiny Bubbles LP that made the Top 20 and stayed in
the charts nearly a year.
Ho continued to cultivate television, appearing as himself on such sitcoms as Batman and I Dream of Jeannie. His
next album, another live collection, East Coast/West Coast, reached the charts but was only a modest seller. Subsequent
records didn't do as well, but another live LP, Suck 'em Up (the title referring to his on-stage exhortation to
the audience to drink heartily), gave him his fourth chart album in the spring of 1969. That summer, he co-hosted
the Kraft Music Hall TV variety series with Sandler & Young, which increased his exposure and helped put Don
Ho -- Greatest Hits! and The Don Ho TV Show onto the charts.
Ho's record sales declined after the late '60s, but he continued to perform extensively and appeared on television,
notably on episodes of The Brady Bunch, Charlie's Angels, and The Fall Guy. From October 1976 to March 1977, he
hosted a half-hour daytime variety series, The Don Ho Show, broadcast over ABC-TV. By the '90s, he had launched
his own label, Honey Records, to release his recordings and others by island favorites. He continued to make occasional
TV appearances, and in 1996 had a small part in the film Joe's Apartment. He performed regularly at his own club
in Hawaii. Hoku, the seventh of his ten children, launched a singing career in 2000 with her song "Another
Dumb Blonde," which was used in the movie Snow Day and became a Top 40 hit, followed by the release of her
debut album, Hoku.
**********
Thousands Bid Farewell to Singer Don Ho
May 6, 2007
HONOLULU - Thousands of fans of different generations gathered on a beach at Waikiki to honor Hawaiian crooner
Don Ho, some clad in bikinis and others in electric wheelchairs.
At a sunset memorial on the beach Saturday, they brought flowers and reminisced about the late entertainer's earlier
years.
"I remember my mom would swoon every time she heard him sing. My dad would get so mad," said Rick Williams,
of Visalia, Calif., who was wearing a T-shirt with Ho's unforgettable smile. "Hawaii was two things back then:
Don Ho and Pearl Harbor."
Officials expected as many as 25,000 people to attend, making it one of the largest crowds ever in Waikiki, according
to city officials. The city arranged extra buses, parking and traffic control.
Ho, known for his catchy signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," died April 14 of heart failure at age 76.
At an earlier private ceremony on the grounds of the Sheraton Waikiki, guests included politicians, musicians and
family members, all of whom where dressed in white, except for Ho's wife, Haumea, who wore a floral orange dress
and a maile lei.
Some of his 10 children sang songs during the tearful ceremony. An Air Force honor guard presented a 21-gun salute
and handed a U.S. flag to Ho's family. Ho had been a retired Air Force pilot.
Pastor Tom Ainucci called Ho an "ambassador of the aloha spirit," who welcomed everyone and made the
world a better place.
After the ceremony, Ho's ashes were taken by a double-hulled canoe about a quarter mile off Waikiki and scattered.
The canoe was accompanied by dozens of surfers and a flotilla of other canoes.
Following the private ceremony, several island entertainers were to perform, with one of Ho's songs, "I'll
Remember You," sung by his 25-year-old daughter, Hoku.
Fans converged on every open spot of sand in Waikiki. Waves gently rolled in as Ho's playful music could be heard
coming from several outdoor bars.
Connie Algoflah flew in Thursday from Buckeye, Ariz., just to attend the memorial. She arrived at the balmy beach
seven hours before the 5 p.m. tribute, to stake out a front-sand seat.
Algoflah, 43, said she had a huge crush on Ho and used to skip school as a teenager in Oklahoma to watch "The
Don Ho Show."
"We were extremely poor in this little run-down apartment. He was my escape into something beautiful,"
she said.
Waikiki was special to Ho, the face and voice of Hawaii to the world for decades.
"Waikiki to me is like a magnet for the world," he said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.
"Waikiki is a beacon. It's like a shining light."
Ho had a breakout year in 1966, when appearances at the Coconut Grove in Hollywood helped him build a mainland
following, and the release of "Tiny Bubbles" gave him his greatest recording success.
Soon he was packing places such as the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Stars including Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis Jr.
and Frank Sinatra took in his shows.
Ho also became a TV star, hosting the "The Don Ho Show" on ABC during 1976-77.
Besides "Tiny Bubbles," his other well-known songs include "With All My Love," and the "Hawaiian
Wedding Song."
Ho had suffered from heart problems for the past several years, and a pacemaker was implanted last fall. In 2005,
he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand.
In one of his first interviews after the procedure, Ho told The AP that he couldn't wait to get back on stage.
And he did, returning on a limited schedule less than two months later.
"A lot of people out there come every year to get their 'Tiny Bubbles' fix," he said then. "So as
long as they keep coming, I might as well keep doing it."
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