Hawaiian Holiday with Johnny Pineapple

Johnny Pineapple & His Orchestra - "Hawaiian Holiday" (1965) - Pickwick

Aloha Friends,

No one gets a party started quite like Johnny Pineapple.  Actually, before we got this LP we never heard of the guy, but boy are we impressed!  This guy is like the Duke Ellington of Luau Music!

From what we can delineate ascertain, Johnny Pineapple was born David Haonohi on the isle of Hawaii.  He became an expert steel guitar player which eventually landed him gigs at New York's Stork Club and the Polynesian Room of Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel.

Now we have dozens of generic-sounding Hawaiian Holiday-type LPs.  All are fun, to an extent, but most are not very good or very memorable.  This one is different. Expert arrangements that are big on atmosphere and big on ethereal-sounding steel guitar, with subtle flourishes of acoustic guitar, percussion and Ellington-style pianos gently wading in the background.  Check out "The Pretty Mermaid of the Southeastern Sea"...

or the sublime, "Paradise Isle".

This album is the soundtrack to a perfect Hawaiian Sunset: after a long day of luau's, scuba diving and drinking out of pineapples, you pass out on the beach with the salty ocean air kissing your sun-drenched skin and hear the gentle and soothing notes of Johnny Pineapple's band. 

Plus check out those pearly white smiles on the album cover!  Johnny Pineapple must have a heck of a dental plan, kids!

Thanks for the record Marilyn!

RATING: 4.5 Pretty Mermaids of the Southeastern Seas out of 5

Elite Hotel

Emmylou Harris - "Elite Hotel" (1975) - Reprise Records

Hello Friends, 

Kick back and relax because we're checking in to the Elite Hotel tonight!  There's no room service, but we got cable t.v., a comfortable bed and a tall bottle of wine chilling in the ice bucket!

Elite Hotel was Emmylou Harris's second amazing record released in 1975 (the first being, Pieces of the Sky) and a groundbreaking work in the burgeoning country-rock genre.  Like "Pieces", the ghost of Gram Parsons (Emmylou's close friend, object of affection and musical mentor who died of an overdose in '73) looms large over nearly every note on the album.  

Featuring three Gram Parsons songs ("Sin City", "Ooh Las Vegas" and "Wheels"), a Buck Owens cover ("Together Again"), a Don Gibson/Patsy Cline classic ("Sweet Dreams"), the Louvin Brothers ("Satan's Jeweled Crown"), Hank Williams ("Jambalaya") and even a Beatles song ("Here, There & Everywhere"), Elite Hotel is an eclectic mix of traditional country, alternative country, the blues, rock & roll, fast & slow, loud & quiet, light & dark.  A very 1970's country LP that put the focus on the album as a whole as opposed to one or two radio-friendly singles.

On all the songs, her voice is strong and ethereal with just the right amount of twang and vulnerability!  There's some great pedal steel guitar work on the record and Emmylou has a "Grade A" backing band, including Rodney Crowell, Glen D. Hardin, Ben Keith, Jonathan Edwards, James Burton and Linda Ronstadt among others.  Its a real hootenanny!

RATING: 4.5 Satan Jeweled Crowns out of 5

Holiday on those Magical Islands of Hawaii

Willie Alunai and his Band - "Holiday on those Magical Islands of Hawaii" (1959) - Parade Record Company

Aloha Friends!

Hawaii became the 50th state of the union on August 21, 1959.  This LP, released shortly thereafter, captures the enchanting and island moods of our most famous archipelago!

With steel guitar galore, this album is the perfect soundtrack to a midsummer's night luau!  

More importantly we like what the seemingly innocuous cover art is implying:

"Come and knock on our door..."

Alright!  Alright!  


RATING: 3.5 Island Threesomes out of a Possible 5

Santo & Johnny Hawaii

Santo & Johnny - "Hawaii" (1961) - Canadian American

Aloha friends!

Put down that rigatoni and pick up that pineapple chicken!  Our favorite Italian-American guitar-playing brothers are back with their third LP-- taking us on a one way trip to the Hawaiian islands by way of Brooklyn, NY!

On Hawaii, the Farina boys are backed by the inconspicuous Hutch Davie orchestra and chorus, but once again the clear star of the album is the haunting and precise pedal steel guitar playing.  Its sound is strange & familiar, tropical and other-worldly, all at the same time! 

The Hawaiian-themed album contains such classics as "Blue Hawaii", "Sweet Lelani", "Hawaiian War Chant" and "The Hawaiian Wedding Song".    


RATING: 4 Pineapple Princesses out of a possible 5

Santo and Johnny Encore

Santo & Johnny - Encore (1960)

Grab your pomade and open that Chianti... these Baciagaloops are at it again! 

On their second LP, the Brooklyn-bred Farina brothers are back with 12 more pedal steel guitar masterpieces! 

The style and sound is close to what it was on their self-titled debut LP (here), released a year prior in 1959.  Its sparse and haunting with an otherworldly pedal steel sound that can cut through a dense fog on a dark night.  The highlights are "Tear Drop", "Venus" and the fantastically sad-sounding, "You Belong to Me."

RATING: 4.5 Prego Jars* out of a possible 5

(* Its in there!)

 

Santo and Johnny

Wow!


The debut album by Brooklyn-born Italian brothers, Santo & Johnny Farina, is pretty effing amazing!  Or to put it in Brooklyn terms, "Hey Vinny! Haveya heard dese greaseballs?  Itsa good!"


Sparsely produced with some virtuosic pedal steel guitar work, this 1959 release is both haunting and frenetic. Its like the soundtrack to a orgy on the backlot of "Happy Days"!  


This is the LP that includes their huge, ubiquitous hit, "Sleepwalk", but it's also chock full of other great early rock'n'roll/loungey guitar-based instrumentals like "Caravan", "Blue Moon", Chuck Berry's "School Day" and Bill Justis's "Raunchy."


RATING: 4.5 bowls of pasta out of a possible 5