The Island Serenaders - " Luau Lei "

I was listening to Luxuriamusic.com at work the other day and heard this cool hawaiian tune by a group called The Island Serenaders.
The tune is called, Luau Lei. It sounds early to mid 60's , somewhat traditional hawaiian with cool surf guitar fills every now and then. Anyone know where this tune can be had? Album? CD?

OK...Luau Lei has a long, convoluted history. The version you refer to comes from an LP :Hawaiian Romance" on Paris Records P-136. However, who the actual artists are is a mystery to me. A set of studio recordings were made featuring the "Luau Lei" group of musicians and they were released on EVERY budget label of the time..SpinORama, Crown, Somerset, Diplomat, etc. etc. With differnt titles and different "Artists" listed everytime. I have about 2 or 3 dozens of these LPS in my collection. The "Luau Lei" sessions were mixed & matched with three other studio groups under all manner of names..Harry Kaapuni & His Royal Hawaiians, The Kahalas, Lani Laurens & His Hawaiian, Luke Leilani, etc., etc. "Luau Lei" oddly seems to have generally kept it's title under most releases, for whatever reason.
ANYWAY..you ought to not have too much trouble tracking down an LP of..don't think it ever made it to CD since it was a.budget label LP. Ten to one says there are 5 or 6 copies of Luau Lei up for bids on eBay this very moment. I often see "Holiday in Hawaii" by The Hawaiians from Crown on eBay and that has Luau Lei on it.
Does that help any? Probably more info than you ever wanted on Luau Lei. The same group did a couple of rockin' Hawaiian tunes....Hawaiian People Eater & Hawaiian Rock (amongst their many other names).

Actually, I just checked on eBay and there are two LPs with Luau Lei right now...don't know how to post links..sorry. But, they are "Hawaiian Rhythm" Luke Leilani...and "Hawaii Tattoo" by The Hawaiians. I'm sure there are others too, but those are the ones that listed the tracks show it showed up under a description search for Luau Lei.

Superb! Thanks much for the info!

I've been digitizing a lot of my Hawaiian and Hapa Haole records lately, for convinience in bringing them to spin at Tabu Tiki Nights at Trader Vic's and elsewhere.

It can be really infuriating to be halfway through the album, and then realize... yup... this sounds familiar... this is one of THOSE.

I've begun a chart to try to track which recordings are on which records, with the song titles down the left column and the LP or artists names along the top. Dots on the matrix this forms shows which tracks are on which records.

When it gets really infuriating is when they change the titles of the exact same recording of the same song. One of my faves to spin is sometimes called Kalakawa Hula, and at other times is called Hawaiina Starlight, and Moon of the Islands on other records I own. I wouldn't be surprised if I unearth another copy of the same recording of the same song by the same unknown musicians, but with a different song title and a different artists credited...

Urgh. A music war, indeed.

Iorana!

JT

http://www.tydirium.net
Tiki Bar Review Pages / Tiki Road Trip / Left Orbit Temple

[ Edited by: tikibars on 2005-01-14 22:48 ]

THOSE records pop up all the time..any "budget label" LP is suspect, especially if the titles are all songs you've never heard of before..because they were "made up." I have something like two dozen or more of those LPs in various combinations. There were 4 different groups of sessions musicians and all the budget labels apparently shared the material. I'd love to hear the actual story there and who the musicians were.
The song you mention.."Kalakawa Hula"..I have it listed under many different titles too.."Hawaiian Starlight","Hawaiian People Eater","Moon Over The Islands", off the top of my head...if it's the song I'm thinking of. It's actually an enjoyable "sub-collection" to me..I call them the "Luke Leilani recordings," which seems to be one of the more popular fake names.

Thanks for the informative thread. How many different covers and group names (with the same music) for the LP "Hawaiian Holiday" do y'all think there are? I must have 5 or more.

I'm gonna try to post my chart here, but I am pretty sure the formatting will get all screwed up.

The interesting thing, to me, is that there seems to be two 'core' sets of recordings, each of which was repeated many times on many records. The bridge between them, in my world at least, is the Montgomery-Ward promo album(!), which contains one side of material from the 'first' set of recordings, and one side from the 'second' set.

OKay, if there's no chart below, that means it was a formatting disaster and I deleted it...

(It was a formatting disaster and I deleted it!).
Anyone interested, emial me and I'll send you an .RTF file.

[ Edited by: tikibars on 2005-01-14 22:47 ]

On 2005-01-14 14:45, Kaiwaza wrote:
There were 4 different groups of sessions musicians and all the budget labels apparently shared the material.

How do you know there were four groups of musicians?

I've spent my evening tonight sorting through my records, and I don't have any definitive evidence at all regarding who played on these records, where or when.

It'd be interesting to track this mystery down, but I suspect it will make the unravling of the vintage Tiki Mug makers look simple by comparison!

Between the budget labels there were four different groups, three small combos and one full blown orchestra.
Group #1 (whoEVER they were) recorded Luau Lei, Red Sails In The Sunset, Harbor Lights, Kula Ha (Bali Lei on Montgomery Ward LP), Drowsy Waters, etc. 13 songs in all released under many different names.
Group #2: The only "standard" they recorded was Hawaiian Sunset, but always released under a different title. These are the guys that did Waikiki Shores on the Montgomery Ward LP. 13 songs in all.
Group # 3: Really hoppin' steel guitar group. Recorded somewhat "standards" always released under different titles. The real titles would be My Little Grass Shack, Steel Guitar Blues, it Happened In Kaloha, Hawaiian War Chant, Lovely Hula Hands, etc..but NEVER released under actual titles...usually really waxky titles like "Dancing Surf","Swinging Surfboards", etc. Great stuff.
Group #4: A full blown orchestra, with rather dark arrangements and very, very little steel guitar..."Dark Dawn" seems to be the track most often picked up, but they also did a version of "Drowsy Waters","Aloha Oe (where they sing "Aloha O", rather than the correct pronounciation), "Now is The Hour" (usually retitled "Maori's Farewell" on the budget labels.
So you can pick out any number of Hawaiian LPs on labels like Crown, Spin O Rama, Promenade, Premier, Diplomat, and countless others and they will usually be some combination of these four different groups.
Also, there's a REALLY trippy kiddie record by "Mookleani & His Group"..4 tracks from Group #1 with corny vocals recorded over it...their "Hawaiian War Chant" simply has the guys singing "Wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki whack" over the tune..crazy.
I'd love to see you list.
Cheers,
John

Nice post there, thanks for the info, but I guess I didn't phrase my question clearly enough: what I was getting at is how you know there were four groups? I mean, I agree that it SOUNDS like several different combos doing these various mixed n' matched trax, and certainly the (very few) that have the orchestra were probably done by different talent from the rest, but aside from what your ears and logic are telling you, do you have any solid evidence that there are three different groups (not counting the orchestra) here? Certainly, the LP sleeves give no clue...

I play steel guitar, and pretty much as in singing, no two steel players sound the same. They have very, very different styles. There's no way those three groups are the same people. I have no "physical edidance" other than saying I can tell Barbra Streisand singing isn't the same as Alicia Keyes singing, if that makes any sense.
I forgot to add that I got a Speedy West LP recently that has two songs credited as being written by him.."Sunset" and "Our Paradise" which are the SAME songs (different recordings though) frequently called "Hawaiian Promenade" and "Mood Hawaiian" from "Group #1." Perhaps those are early studio recordings of Speedy West as the style is somewhat similar...? It would be FASCINATING to me, yet probably impossible to unwind the history of those recordings.
Cheers,
John

Very interesting thread.

I have a folder of mp3s that I have down as being "Holiday in Hawaii" by The Hawaiians (pretty original huh). I'm sure I downloaded these songs from a TCer's link. The mp3s are titled as Track 01, Track 02 etc. I was reviewing them for possible inclusion on a mix CD even though I hate to use songs of which I don't have the name to put on the packaging. So I'm listening and one of the songs rings a bell. I go and get my Lene Okehu and His Surfboarders album "Hawaiian Holiday" and recognize the song as "Hawaiian Rock." So Lene Okehu and His Surfboarders is a name under which these songs were also released.

The two albums have seven songs in common but I still have three unnamed mp3s. Anyone have "Holiday in Hawaii" by The Hawaiians? I'd like to get the names of the other three tracks. If the Hawaiian's album used different song titles from those on the Lene Okehu album I'd like to know that as well. Here are the songs from The Hawaiians "Holiday in Hawaii" that were also on the Lene Okehu album and respective titles.

1- Hawaiian War Chant
2- Moon of Manakoora
3- Hawaiian People Eater
4- Luau Lei
5- Hawaiian Rock
6- *unknown
7- *unknown
8- Kula Ha
9- *unknown
10- Aloha Oe Away

I could email the three tracks to anyone who thinks they could ID them by listening to them. Thanks.

On MY copy of this record...

6. Red Sails in the Sunset
7. Hawaiian Love Song
8. Drowsy Waters

...but as discussed above, the same title with the same artist listed may have different tracks!

Thanks tikibars!

In addition to the tracks on THAT album, this particular "mystery group" also recorded "Harbor Lights" and "Red Sails In The Sunset." That completes THEIR particular output to all these budget label LPs.
I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to list all the LPs by title & "mystery group" name ad if they were group a,b,c, or d or a combination...just to give folks a head up when finding records whether they are "one of those" recording..I'm sure I have about 30 or so of them.

On MY "Hawaiian Holiday" by Leni Okehu the order of the tracks is:

1. Hawaiian War Chant
2. Moon Of Manakoora
3. Song Of The Islands
4. Hawaiian Rock
5. Aloha Oe Away
6. Hawaiian People Eater
7. Luau Lei
8. Kula Ha
9. To You Sweetheart Aloha.
   In addition this particular group recorded "Harbor Lights" and "Red Sails In The Sunset" and that completes THEIR contribution to all the mixed budget label LPs.
   I wonder if it would be worthwhile to list all of these LPs by title/artist and if they are group a,b,c, or d or some combination..I'm sure I have about 30 of them
   How insane are we anyway? I mean, what the heck would you do with some listing of every title "Hawaiian People Eater" has ever been released under? Yet the idea is somehow alluring...

on this blog you can dl another package with some of the tracks:
this time called:
Jimmy Uke and his Islanders - Hawaiian Holiday
(nice cover, saw it never before)

http://tamtammelodie.blogspot.com/

martin
http://www.myspace.com/hularock