“That was a fun job,”?Tapia says, “but I’d get sick all the time. Son of a gun, if I knew that thing was going to be worth something, I would have kept it.”Ī couple years later, Tapia landed himself a gig on cruise ships, his first chance to lay eyes on California. I don’t know how he did it, it wasn’t paint. When he made the pineapple uke, he gave me a white one. “I had the first pineapple uke made,” he declares.
#The day you went away uke free#
Ukulele manufacturers took notice of this rising star, giving him prototypes of new designs and free instruments to try out. At the age of 14, he found himself playing with the legendary Johnny Noble at the famous Moana Hotel. We were going like mad!”īack then, Tapia’s repertoire was mostly standards and patriotic numbers like “Stars and Stripes Forever.” But, blessed with a good ear, he could pick up a new tune fairly quickly. Then I had to get in the car quickly and the guy would drive me to another theater.
I had to be at this place at 8 o’clock, I’d go and play a couple of songs. I was a kid and I had a car that drove me around. I worked in the Waikiki Theater, Princess Theater, every theater. The Hawaiian Amusement Company ran almost all the theaters, the big ones. They took me out of school and I worked in every theater on the islands. Then when I was 12, I worked in vaudeville, in silent pictures. “At the age of 10, I played USO shows for World War I,” he says. His learning curve must have been sharp, as just a couple of years later he was performing in public. Tapia eventually bought himself a ukulele, a Nunes with a couple of cracks bought straight from the factory for 75 cents. One of the guys said, ‘Do you want to learn this?’ He saw that I was interested. During the intermission, they’d lay their instruments down and smoke and I’d go over there and play a couple of chords. All he did was chords … he didn’t play melody. And I’d watch their ukulele player and I was fascinated. “I used to hear that music I lived right across from them. Every night they’d gather over there and start playing and singing.” These Hawaiians used to play out in the moonlight and they’d use these trees that they cut down for benches.
“My mother’s family and my aunt were the only Portuguese people living there. “When I was about seven, I lived in a Hawaiian village,” Tapia remembers. His brother played saxophone adequately enough, but Bill was the first real musician in his clan. This story, as told by Tapia himself, begins on a rural street in Hawaii. Tapia, now 94, has played alongside almost every major jazz musician of the first half of the 20th century. His recounted career sounds downright restless until you realize that his stories take place over 10 decades.
#The day you went away uke how to#
Or, you may be lucky enough to hear about his stints in Hollywood, and the times he taught Clark Gable and the Little Rascals how to play music. You might hear about his love for Kinney & Mossman and Martin ukes. Talk to Tapia about the early days of the ukulele and you may hear about Hawaiian music legends Andy Iona, King Bennie Nawahi or Johnny Noble (all of with whom he worked). He’s a fretted instrument virtuoso, he backed some of the biggest “name bands” on both sides of the Pacific, and - however hard it is to believe - Tapia has been playing the uke since the instrument’s adolescence, in 1915. While most of his Hawaiian peers recorded numerous 78s that would ensure their place in the music archives, Tapia was too busy working as a live musician, playing not just island tunes but also mainland-styled jazz. Maybe you’ve never heard of music legend Bill Tapia.
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