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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, April 3, 2001



Myra English, 'Hawai'i's champagne lady,' dead at 68

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

They called her "Hawai'i's Champagne Lady," because of her signature hit, "Drinking Champagne."

The rascal nature of Myra English was often put in music.

Advertiser library photo • Aug. 9, 1999

And, indeed, singer Myra English, who died Thursday at age 68, is being recalled as one who was always as effervescent as the bottled bubbly of which she sang.

English, whose formal name was Myra English Gibbs, was "totally unique, a one-of-a-kind," said singer-composer Jay Larrin. "She sang exactly what she loved and she rattled the chandeliers whenever she performed. She just knew how to have fun."

"Her 'Drinking Champagne' will live on forever," said Cha Thompson, vice president of Tihati Productions, who occasionally hired English to perform at functions. "She was one entertainer who got along with everybody ... and everybody loved Myra and her sexy, gravelly voice."

Melveen Leed, her longtime buddy, said she made frequent visits to the Queen's Medical Center to see English, who had been ailing for months. "Music was her life and she put the sparkle in 'Drinking Champagne,' " Leed said. "I will really miss her; she was always happy-go-lucky and I've never seen her sad. She would always be the one to make other people happy and we often talked about doing a concert together. She came to visit me a couple of months ago at Chai's Island Bistro, and she just lit up when she got up to sing."

Said veteran entertainer Don Ho: "Myra was one of the free spirits; she just loved to sing for people.Whenever you got her on a stage, she wanted to stay forever because she loved working before an audience. She just had that Gabby (Pahinui), Sonny (Chillingworth) spirit; always sharing. And I thought her voice was just beautiful; she always brought down the house whenever I called her on stage to sing."

English was an old-school vocalist who endeared herself to audiences at the old Blue Dolphin Room of the Outrigger Waikiki Hotel in the '60s and '70s, when Hawaiian music was undergoing an identity crisis, swayed by altering influences. English, however, maintained her traditional Hawaiian approach, often adding her kolohe (rascally) nature into her music.

Besides club and recording work, English also was a regular guest on the "Hawai'i Calls" radio show, made appearances at Club Polynesia and the 'Ilikai Hotel, and worked at the State Legislature.

English was born on Feb. 22, 1933, in Makawao, Maui, and graduated from Maui High School. She attended Honolulu Business College and Peterson's School of Business in Seattle.

Services will be held in Honolulu and on Maui. Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Diamond Head Mortuary, where a prayer service will be at 7 p.m. On Maui, visitation will be from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Holy Rosary Church in Pa'ia, at 954 Baldwin Ave., where Mass will be celebrated at noon; burial will follow at Maui Memorial Park. Casual attire; no flowers.

Survived by husband, Chelliot Gibbs; daughter, Pat Cabrera; sons, Chelliot Jr., Kenneth and John; 11 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; a brother, Ralph English; sister, Winona Gulick.