Little strummer boy now duke of uke

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Bill Tapia is a self-taught musician who has made a living playing the guitar, banjo and 'ukulele. The uke was his first instrument, which he bought for 75 cents as a youngster and played at the train station for coins. BILL TAPIA 7:30 p.m. Saturday Paliku Theater, Windward Community College $25 general, $20 seniors, military, students, children 235-7433 Also: "To You Sweetheart, Aloha," a film about Tapia, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22, and 1 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23-24 at the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts.

"Just don't say 97 years old," he said in a phone conversation from his San-Francisco-area home. "Say young, because I feel good. I lived with my mother, and later my wife, who both fed me good. I ate a lot of vegetables, exercised all my life, until I was 87 or so. Sometimes, I exercised with irons, jogged half an hour, rode the bike daily.

"I still keep late hours, and I used to smoke from about 11 till I was 85 — a pack-and-a-half a day — but I never did take dope. Though I lost some sight in one eye, I still get around, and I feel happy."

And why not?

Tapia's second uke CD, "Duke of Uke," is just out; he is revving up for a concert Saturday at Paliku Theatre; he will soon launch a promotional tour in Northern California. His fame has spread nationwide, and reviews and articles about him have been published in the Los Angeles Times and other publications. There's even a movie about him (see info box on Page 21). And his mind is as sharp as that proverbial tack.

His gift of strumming might be eclipsed only by his gift of gab; he enjoys reflecting on his early years.

"In my time, I played at some of the worst places, but I also played in some of the best places ... and with some of the greatest folks," he said.

Among the posh places was the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, when he was about 23.

While doing one of those Wilshire jobs, he talked his way into getting a night off so he could take in Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, his childhood idol, who was playing nearby.

"I listened to Satchmo for a half hour. At intermission, he was wiping his horn with his handkerchief and I told him I was Bill Tapia, from Honolulu, and I played Hawaiian guitar. I asked him, 'Can I please play with you, sit in with your group?'

"He asked if I was familiar with his music; I told him I thought I could play anything and he told me to go get my guitar, so I went to the car to get it. I played a couple of songs and people gave me a big hand.

"When it was over, I was packing my guitar and he hit me on the back and said, 'Where you going? You can stay as long as you want.' So I stayed and hung with his musicians. That's when I tried marijuana for the first time, and I thought it smelled like burnt grass; I thought marijuana was the name of a good-looking girl. My lips tightened and my head was spinning and I had a tingly feeling. Boy, I thought I was going to die. The thing made me so sick, and if it didn't, I might've been an addict."

His life of music began simply. When he was 7, he bought his first 'ukulele for 75 cents from his neighbor, Manuel Nunes, one of the first uke makers in the Islands.

"Seventy-five cents was a lot of money in those days, since you could eat a cheap meal for 15 cents, but this old uke had a really good sound, even with a few cracks that were fixed. It's money I had saved in a chocolate can that my mother cut a hole in to slip in the coins. This cranky guy wanted $1.25 for the uke, but 75 cents was all I had. I wish I kept the old thing; it would be worth big money now."

His 'ohana was poor; his dad abandoned the family when he was 8. So he had to discover clever ways to earn money.

Aside from two quickie lessons in strumming uke, Tapia said, he was basically self-taught. "I learned everything myself, putting two and two together," he said. "I asked a lot of questions; I played with some top-notch musicians. And I figured it out myself."

The uke was his first instrument; as he grew older, Tapia wanted to play with big bands. "Johnny Noble, who was a reputable songwriter in his time, asked me after hearing me play uke, 'Gee, kid, where the hell did you learn to play? I wish you knew how to play banjo.'

"I lied to him. He needed a banjo for his band at the Moana hotel, so I told him I played it, and went to a pawn shop and bought myself a cheap banjo, tuned it up like a uke, and when I played, I used the 'ukulele tuning and got by that way. Later on, I learned the right way, figuring it out myself."

As many bands adopted guitar and the banjo was linked mostly to Dixieland music, Tapia was given two weeks notice to leave the band. "I knew a few chords; I asked if I could learn to play guitar in three weeks and practice real hard, I could retain my job. So I stayed up all night, practicing that doggone guitar, and that was the beginning of my guitar years.

"I lived in the San Francisco area for 56 years, and didn't touch the uke again until about three years ago, when my wife was ill. When she died, I was going to quit music all together, but everybody everywhere got crazy about the uke, and I still could play as good as I did before. Then I met a young girl, 25, whom we took in as our family, and she had something to do with concerts. Got me back on uke. Now, I'm back to playing it regularly."

Tapia said he adores the uke.

"It has an individual sound, it's easy to pack around, you can use it to back up vocals, or feature it as a solo instrument," he said. "But for the longest time, lots of people, especially tourists, looked at the uke as a toy. If you knew six or eight chords, and you play it right, you can play just about anything on it, like a piano, or any string instrument."

Besides, the joy the uke brings him "is like a release valve. When you're tired, and you play, you have good-kine tired. When you play with those great guys like Byron Yasui and Benny Chong, it's so easy, so much fun." (Both perform with him on his new "Duke of Uke" CD.)

At 11, Tapia frequented the 'A'ala Park-Iwilei area to shine shoes, earn a few coins and play his 'ukulele. "It was the worst part of town — prostitutes on Iwilei and bootleg clubs at the park — but I would go down early Saturday morning, to the train station, with my shine-shoe box. The Army and Navy people came in on the train, and my 'ukulele was in the shine-shoe box. I said 'Shine?' and when they said yes, I'd get a nickel. But to hear me play uke, I would get two bits, sometimes a whole dollar, so that was fun, and profitable."

Earlier, when he was 10, Tapia devised a creative version of "Stars and Stripes Forever," in which he plucked his trusty uke and also made drum-like thumping sounds. "Undoubtedly, I was the first to play the song like this, strumming the uke and imitating drums, and everybody started copying me when nobody else was playing that song," he said.

To this day, that popular march is in his concert repertoire.