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Danny Kaleikini, the legendary entertainer who embodied the best of Hawaii, was being remembered throughout the islands for his immense talent as a singer, musician, actor and recording artist, and for his boundless devotion to spreading aloha worldwide.
Kaleikini died in his sleep Friday morning at St. Francis Hospice in Nuuanu. He was 85. Memorial services have not been announced.
From the late 1950s, Kaleikini entertained countless locals and visitors alike with his baritone voice singing a repertoire of hapa haole favorites and Hawaiian standards. While he performed across the mainland and internationally during his career, Kaleikini was rooted in his Native Hawaiian values and always shared his love for Hawaii and its people.
He would start each show with a hearty and melodic “Aloha!” and share his personal credo, “Aloha ke kahi i ke kahi” (“Love is everywhere. Love is where you find it.”).
That spirit and character eventually earned him his famous moniker in 1988 when Gov. John Waihee officially designated him Hawaii’s “Ambassador of Aloha.”
“I gave him the title because he deserved it,” Waihee recalled recently. “If you remember back in the 1970s, there was a big effort to discover what ‘aloha’ meant and how it was a part of the state of Hawaii. … There were some very important components that were involved with it, but then in terms of everyday expression, Danny seemed to personify it.
“I never thought of Danny as being particularly partisan as much as he was a representative of some somebody who wanted everybody to be well, not only to get along, but to get to be better,” Waihee said. “An ‘Ambassador of Aloha’ is somebody who represents the state of aloha. Nobody else could do it better than Danny.”
Modest though he was, the title was one of Kaleikini’s most-prized accolades.
“I was so honored to share this aloha, not only here but around the world because (the late) Duke Kahanamoku had been our ‘Ambassador of Aloha,’ and I had the privilege of working with Duke. We went to open the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in Dallas, Texas, in 1959,” Kaleikini told PBS Hawaii “Long Story Short” host Leslie Wilcox in 2010.
“It’s interesting, but with all the changes that have been around (since then) — we’ve seen the changes, from television to show business today — all I’m saying is to all of our great leaders (is): ‘Reeducate everybody on that five-letter magic word a-l-o-h-a — aloha.’ It’s so important especially for the young people,” he said.
Linda Wong, Kaleikini’s business partner for more than 30 years, described him as “a man of genuine aloha.” They met when Wong was working for Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi.
“With Danny, the aloha was real. It wasn’t an act,” she said. “We’d run into so many people who would thank him for something he’d done for them. One woman told me recently that when her father passed away Danny came to the funeral and played his nose flute, and she would never forget it. … He was always giving.”
Discovered busing tables
Born and raised on homestead land overlooking Honolulu, Danny Kaleikini Jr. graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1955.
“We had very humble beginnings,” Kaleikini told Honolulu Star-Advertiser columnist Bob Sigall in 2016. “Nine kids in the family — three sisters, five brothers and me.”
Kaleikini and his older brother would walk from Papakolea to downtown Honolulu to sell newspapers. His brother was 8, he was 6.
“If I sold three newspapers, I made 5 cents,” he told Sigall. “I was so proud of that nickel. On a good day my brother and I would each make 40 cents, which we’d give to our mother.”
The two brothers also made money shining shoes and singing for tips at a downtown taxi stand.
Kaleikini told Sigall that music was always an important part of life growing up in Papakolea.
“I learned all my songs from my father and grandfather. They’d come home on Fridays and grab a six-pack, pupus and their ukulele, go in the backyard and start singing songs. We would sing all the old Hawaiian songs. Those are the precious family moments I’ll never forget.”
Kaleikini was an accomplished singer by the time he was a middle school student at what was then Kawananakoa Intermediate School. He blossomed — singing and playing several instruments — at Roosevelt. He was working after school, busing tables at the Waikiki Sands Hotel, when Ray Kinney, one of the great Hawaiian singers and bandleaders of the time, learned he could sing.
Reminiscing with columnist Sigall in 2016, Kaleikini described it as almost like a scene from a movie.
“‘Oh, you sing?’ (Kinney) asked me. ‘Come up and sing a song,’ he’d tell me. I’d pick up $2 to $3 in tips. Wow, I thought. This is so unreal. I was so happy.
“Kinney took me aside and said, ‘Young man, you have a talent. Come with me to the Royal Hawaiian and I’ll teach you how to select and sing Hawaiian songs.’”
Another early mentor, Clara “Hilo Hattie” Inter, inspired him to speak standard English when entertaining visitors instead of using pidgin.
After several years working part time while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Kaleikini decided that entertainment was his calling and left school for a full-time engagement with the late Haunani Kahalewai at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. (He received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from UH in 1991.)
Over the next 10 years he made mainland promotional tours with Kent Ghirard, appeared on Webley Edwards’ famed “Hawaii Calls” radio show and headlined the Hilton Hawaiian Village from 1961 to 1967.
An astute businessman
In 1967, Kaleikini made the calculated gamble of leaving the Waikiki landmark to become the headliner at what was then the Kahala Hilton in Waialae. His 27-year engagement at the Kahala Hilton’s Hala Terrace is the longest by any individual Hawaiian showroom star in a single venue.
On stage at the Hala Terrace, Kaleikini shared his vision of traditional and modern Hawaii without ever talking down to visitors or playing the role of “exotic native.” He introduced visitors to the ohe hano ihu (bamboo nose flute) and shared some basic Hawaiian vocabulary as well when he’d tell them, “We’re going to kani ka pila make music ohana family-style!”
Kaleikini was the first major showroom headliner to foresee the explosive growth of Japanese tourism after he visited Japan in 1968. He became conversational in Japanese and made business contacts there. He then went on to learn greetings in so many other languages that comedian Andy Bumatai joked that if “space aliens” landed at the Kahala Hilton, Kaleikini would greet them in their own language.
In addition to being a multitalented entertainer, Kaleikini was an astute businessman who handled all aspects of managing, staging and producing his show at the Kahala Hilton. He was one of the investors who attempted to keep the radio show “Hawaii Calls” on the air and promoting Hawaii as a visitor destination when the Hawaii Visitors Bureau and the state Legislature eliminated funding for the show after Edwards’ death in 1972.
He also released several albums on local record labels; enjoyed a successful run as the host of “Danny Kaleikini Theatre” on local television from 1970 to 1981; and was a guest on the original “Hawaii Five-0.”
In 1983, he established the nonprofit Danny Kaleikini Foundation to support local organizations in providing charitable, educational and medical services, along with supporting scientific research and religious programs.
Kaleikini’s residency at the Kahala Hilton came to an end in 1994 shortly before the hotel was sold to a company that was planning to make major renovations to the property and its business strategy. It marked the end of an era in island entertainment.
Kaleikini shared his concerns as a Native Hawaiian businessman in 1994 when he ran for lieutenant governor as Fasi’s partner on the Best Party ticket. The unsuccessful campaign was his only foray into the political arena.
He received the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
Foundation in family
In 1995, Kaleikini and Wong began cleaning up the Kahaluu Fishpond, a 42-acre property that Wong’s late father, Dr. Raymond Chung Yap, had purchased many years before. Yap had originally thought of the area in commercial terms, but as years passed he came to appreciate the pond’s cultural significance.
Kaleikini and Wong spent two years working to restore the land themselves and then opened the Aloha Ke Akua Chapel at the fishpond in 1998, in partnership with Watabe Wedding Corp. of Japan.
“Danny always said it was Akua (God) that guided us. It’s been kind of a spiritual journey. He wanted our workers and those who visited to know what was important out there: Akua, ohana and aloha.”
Along with fishpond maintenance, Kaleikini kept active mentoring his grandson, musician and recording artist Nicholas Kaleikini.
The musical partnership of grandfather and grandson recorded a six-song EP “Mahaaalo,” which made the final ballot of the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in 2016, and a series of showcase performances at the Blue Note Hawaii in Waikiki.
Family was always the foundation of his life.
“That is so important not only for me, but for everybody,” he told Wilcox in 2010. “I mean, you have your father — take care your father; you have your mother — take care your mother; take care grandma. It comes to the point where we all have to malama ohana, malama, take care, of the family.
“You know we get pilikia (problems) here. I’ve always found that (when) there’s a problem you always can find an answer (because) you can approach it so many different ways. The problem is 360 degrees, right? You can hit ’em from every corner because there’s always one puka that you can just go in there and come up with a final (solution). … In life you learn from your experiences.”
Connecting through music
On Jan. 22, 2022, Kaleikini returned to Waialae and the hotel that is now the Kahala Hotel & Resort for the official naming of its front drive as Danny Kaleikini Drive.
Kahala Hotel & Resort General Manager Joe Ibarra told the crowd of well- wishers that as the first Native Hawaiian general manager of the property, he thought it was especially important that Kaleikini be recognized for his career accomplishments as an entertainer and an ambassador of aloha, and in perpetuating the music, language and culture of Hawaii.
In accepting the honor — and proclamations from the state, city and state Senate — Kaleikini joked that he should have bought the hotel when he was working there. He recalled the nights that he saw his father and some of his father’s friends among the local people watching the show from the beach, and thanked the late Rev. Abraham Akaka for persuading him when he was in his teens that there were better things for young Hawaiian men in Papakolea to do than “rob houses” in the upscale neighborhoods nearby.
Notables in the audience included then-Lt. Gov. Josh Green, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi and state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, along with a host of other prominent local business people and entertainers.
Hawaiian singer Nina Keali‘iwahamana joined Kaleikini to sing “A Maile Lei for Your Hair” and the “Hawaiian Wedding Song.” Grandson Nicholas Kaleikini sat in with the house band as well.
In a tweet Friday, now-Gov. Green said, “Uncle Danny Kaleikini will forever be remembered as an ambassador of aloha. He had a unique way of uniting communities through song. Our state will deeply miss his larger-than-life personality and his magic.”
Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO John De Fries said in a statement Friday, “Danny’s warmth and charisma brightened every room he walked into and every stage he was on. He was larger than life, an icon and genuine ambassador of the Hawaiian Islands who shared his love for music and the people of Hawai‘i throughout the world.”
Looking back at his career in 2016, Kaleikini told columnist Sigall that he’d been “very fortunate.”
“God gave me a gift … I traveled the world with music, Hawaiian music,” he said. “Because of music I’ve seen the world. Because of music I could connect with people wherever they were. With my ukulele I was in business. Music is a universal language.”
In addition to his grandson, Kaleikini is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Wong Kaleikini; his daughter, Leonn Keikilani Kaleikini; and his sister, Susan Hamada. He was predeceased by his son, Danjacques Kaleikini, in 1992.
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