Living Legends And Their Legacies

The Legacy Awards honor people in the Hawaii music scene whose combination of talent and perseverance over the years keep them front and center. Here’s an intimate look at a few of those who will receive the award on Thursday

Wednesday - March 15, 2006
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people refer to him as “an expert.”

“There are so many others who are experts in Hawaiian language - people like Puakea Nogelmeier, for example,” clarifies Haugen, who is in his 12th year teaching the subject at Star of the Sea. “As for me, I’ll only be an expert once the people around me know less than me.”

As much as he’s accomplished individually, Haugen says his greatest work is his collaboration with wife Carmen. They married in 1968, although it wasn’t until seven years later that their relationship found its way onto stages across the globe, where her hula (she studied under the late kumu hula Hu’i Park) and smile made her an instant hit. Since then, the duo has been an inseparable act, performing at such local venues as the Hawaiian Regent, Pacific Beach and Royal Hawaiian hotels.

Carmen Haugen

“(Carmen) always says she wanted to perform because she saw how much fun I was having,” Haugen explains. “But I always say she began performing because she got tired of staying at home.”

As far as the Legacy Award is concerned, Haugen says: “It’s a real honor when you consider all the great groups that have come out of Hawaii. But I’ll take it.”

Sonya Mendez Female Vocalist The analogy Sonya Mendez often uses is there are two types of entertainers. The first sits on the front burner and boils feverishly, only to quickly overflow and soon disappear without a trace. The second, meanwhile, sits on the back burner and simmers for a good, long time.

Sonya Mendez

So which type is Mendez? “I’ve been on the back burner for so long, doing all kinds of different things,” she confesses. “But I think that everything that I’m doing now after 35 years in this business is a result of being versatile and constant in my career.”

Seems like only yesterday that Mendez was burning it up on stage at The Wave nightclub, with a head full of hot pink hair and a voice to die for as the lead singer of Sonya and the Revolucion. And then just as quickly as she burst upon the music scene, she was gone - leaving the Islands in 1987 for new musical challenges in Vancouver and Atlanta.

Ironically, a professional singing career was the furthest thing from her mind while growing up on a dairy farm in Red Hill.

“My intention wasn’t to sing, even though singing came naturally to me. It was to go to college and be a speech and drama teacher,” says Mendez, who still does the occasional theater bit - with her latest efforts coming in the South Pacific play that recently ran at Windward Community College. “I didn’t grow up with the idea that I was going to be an entertainer. In fact, it wasn’t until I was about 14 that I really began to study my art.”

By her senior year at Aiea High, Mendez was working at the Honolulu International Airport as a lei greeter, making “the minimum wage of $1.25” when she happened to catch an ad in the paper that requested “a singer-dancer for a show in Waikiki.” Turns out the ad was placed by Carole Kai, who had been looking for a back-up singer.

Kai offered the job to Mendez and the youngster gladly accepted, despite the fact that her first gig on Maui happened to be on the same night as high school graduation.

“It was too glamorous a job to pass up,” recalls Mendez, who nowadays works as one of the judges on Hawaii Stars, the TV karaoke show hosted by - who else? - Carole Kai. “I was thinking, ‘Should I skip graduation or make money?’ In the end, I decided I was going to take the money!”

Since moving back to the Islands in 1998, Mendez has remained busy, working on her first CD (which will feature the already released hit Luau ChaCha-Cha) and doing community service, which includes her latest endeavor - becoming president of the Kapolei Rotary Club.

When she got a letter notifying her of her Legacy Award, she immediately called Borges, a longtime friend. “I said, ‘Jimmy, what does this all mean?’ And he said, ‘It means that you’re old!’”

Actually, it means that Mendez is still simmering after all these years.

Don Ho Mayor’s Performing Arts Award

The best way to understand Don Ho is to understand what he’s not - and that’s someone who takes his iconic status too seriously.

You compliment him by saying he’s had “a busy and productive career,” and he turns it around and asks if you really meant to say, “dizzy.”

You ask him to expound upon the content of his shows at the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, which continue to play to rave reviews and sold-out audiences, and he’ll say in a self-deprecating way, “I dunno. I don’t even know what I do every night.”

You tell him he seems spry and ask if it’s because he’s been exercising, and he’ll quip, “I do a lotta walkin’; I gotta mow the lawn, you know.”

And that’s when you realize why Maxim magazine named him one of the “50 Coolest Guys Ever.” Don Ho isn’t just cool because of his distinctive voice; or because he’s a symbol for Hawaii; or because of his legendary contributions to music, which he’s always considered to be “a hobby, an escape”; or because of his cult-hero status among many alternative rock bands, including Green Day and Foo Fighters.

What makes him really cool is he’s down to earth - so much so that when you finally get him to talk about a subject for which he’s seriously passionate, you realize it concerns the ‘aina and the eyesores that dot its landscape.

“You know, all these buildings are just overwhelming Hawaii, and it’s just stupid,” he says, obviously frustrated with the current look of his beloved Islands.

“This architecture is not Hawaii because it doesn’t blend in with the rest of the scenery. See, unless you was there like me, it’s hard to understand how beautiful Hawaii was like back in my early days. Now, the only place that’s close to how it used to be is the Hana coastline.

“Some people think Hawaii is a continent, but we’re an island,” Ho continues. “You cannot copy everything they do on the Mainland. The reason why people come over here is because they’re trying to leave the continent. Pretty soon they just going come to a bunch of cement buildings. You go down Waikiki now and it looks like Rodeo Drive with all them high-class stores.”

Born in Kakaako, Ho was nevertheless raised on the Windward side of Oahu - his “playground” as a youngster.

His parents ran a tavern called Honey’s in Kaneohe and it was there where Ho kick-started his career.

“My dad told me, ‘Son, if you wanna have customers, you better make some music,” Ho remembers.

“When I took over the joint, it was just me and the cockroaches. But then I cleaned that up, invited some friends from the community like Sonny Chillingsworth over to play and we began to make some music.

“It was like the original karaoke.”

The rest, of course, is history.

Despite Ho’s aforementioned aversion to award ceremonies, the Music Foundation of Hawaii can rest assured that the entertainer will keep and treasure his Legacy award. After all, if there’s anything that Don Ho despises, it’s needlessly tossing things away.

“I’m like the worst pack-rat you ever saw in Hawaii,” he admits. “I see value in everything. So you won’t ever catch me throwing anything in the junk pile.”

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