Updated at 10:26 p.m., Saturday, April 14, 2007
Ho to be remembered tonight at Merrie Monarch event
By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor
Kahoano recalled Ho as an inspiration and a friend.
"He could command the audience not just here but all around the world. I went into a place in New Jersey in 1957 and there on the jukebox was Don Ho singing 'Tiny Bubbles' and I thought, 'Ho! This guy really has it.' Don gave me and a lot of other Hawaiians the courage to go for it in the entertainment business; we just had to find our own way."
Kahoano praised Ho's sense of comedic timing, noting that, even in his final show, last Thursday, "Ho was still making people laugh and he knew just how to deliver his lines."
And he said that Ho's voice, which some have said was just an imitation of Dean Martin's whiskey voice, was a deliberate choice: "Don had a great voice, always on pitch and he sang the way he wanted to."
