Don Ho

1930年8月13日，Don Ho出生于夏威夷的檀香山，是夏威夷人、中国人、葡萄牙人、荷兰人和德国人的混血种人，原名Donald Tai Loy Ho，在以前还是农村的卡内奥赫长大。父亲是一家酒巴的老板，他本人于上世纪60年代初闯入怀基基海滩一带的娱乐圈，此后几乎再也没有离开过这个小圈子。象他这样一生几乎不曾离开同一演唱地的艺人，世上鲜有。
Don Ho曾于2004年这样对美联社记者说：“夏威夷是我的伙伴！”
中学时候，Don Ho曾是学校里明星级的足球运动员，当学生期间在一家菠萝罐头厂里工作过一段时间。1949年中学毕业后，凭运动奖学金进入马萨诸塞州的斯普林菲尔德学院深造，后因思乡心切，返回夏威夷群岛，最终于1953年大夏威夷大学完成学业，获得社会学学位。
受二战期间美军飞机进出夏威夷的影响，Don Ho曾经参加美国空军。朝鲜战争结束后，他先后多次驾驶军用运输机，往返于檀香山的希开姆空军基地和东京之间。解甲回乡后，他从父亲手中接过经营多年的酒巴Honey's，并组建了一个乐队，并应父亲的请求开始登台表演。
Don Ho曾吐露心迹说：“我原来根本无意成为一名艺人，我只是唱了几首从收音机里听来的自己喜欢的歌曲，但过了不久，那里就人满为患了。每到周末，等着听我演唱的人总会把长队排到大街上。”
后来，Honey's酒巴成了瓦胡岛上一个不容游客错过的好去处，夏威夷其他地方的音乐人，也经常驻足这里，即兴举办一些摇滚爵士乐演奏会。他开始到夏威夷的各种地方演唱，并于1966年获得突破性成就，在好莱坞参加椰子林演唱会，并推出首张唱片《Tiny Bubbles》，获得极大成功。
此后，他又到赌城拉斯韦加斯的火烈鸟酒店，开拓自己的演艺事业舞台。露西·宝尔、弗兰克·辛那特拉等著名明星，都曾是他的忠实观众。1976-1977年，他还在ABC主持过电视节目“The Don Ho Show”，Don Ho最难以忘记的电视表演，是他于1972年在电视剧《The Brady Bunch》的一段表演。“这些年来我得到过太多的欢乐，但确实为那一次感到遗憾。”他在2004年接受采访时这样说。
在对Don Ho进行评价时，美国夏威夷现任州长琳达·林格说，Don Ho为夏威夷州创造了一份遗产，他将激励未来一代又一代的夏威夷本土音乐人努力前进。她说：“夏威夷失去了一份真正的财富，他奠定了夏威夷音乐界目前享有的国际声誉的基础。”
除《Tiny Bubbles》外，Don Ho演唱的其他著名歌曲还包括：《我会记着你》(I'll Remember You)、《给你我所有的爱》(With All My Love)和《夏威夷婚礼曲》(Hawaiian Wedding Song)等。
by William Ruhlmann
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 Honeys, 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 Dukes. 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, Harrahs at Lake Tahoe, the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Americana Hotels 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 didnt 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.
Hos record sales declined after the late 60s, but he continued to perform extensively and appeared on television, notably on episodes of The Brady Bunch, Charlies 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 Joes 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.