It's
pretty easy to see how time and adulation could pass by an old
salty sea dog like Paul Page.
Why, it's clear that a lot of
New Orleans' greatest R&B pianists never bothered to make
recordings; they made too good a living working in bordellos to
bother with the budding recording industry and its pratfalls.
We'll never hear “Sullivan Rock,” Frank Duston, Robert
Bertrand, “Rocker,” “Drive “Em Down,”
“Boogus” and “Kid Stormy Weather.” But hey,
jazz, blues and R&B are at least well-documented genres.
Who's ever bothered to write the history of that Hawaiian hybrid
that's become known as Exotica? People are just becoming aware of
Martin Denny, but what of his contemporaries? Very little is
known about big shots like Lani McIntire and Arthur Lyman, let
alone more obscure characters like Eden Ahbez.
Then there's the fringe musician
who works for a living, playing at Polynesian-themed restaurants
every night and maybe getting around to pressing up an album or
so for their barroom clientele. One may even believe that nothing
significant, relevant or “valid” could come from such
recordings. After all, isn't the essence of a lounge repertoire
nothing more than familiar covers, maybe given a perverse
“entertainer” twist?
I would have stumbled upon Paul
Page even if I never read the REsearch books Incredibly
Strange Music Vol. I & II. He certainly wasn't
featured in those books. As a surfer, I'd been collecting
Hawaiian and Exotica records casually for years. Look in the puny
record collection of even the most jock-like surfer asshole, and
he'll be sure to have something Hawaiian to remind him of
“the islands.” On a recent trip to Honolulu I got
extremely lucky. Froggie's Records, who for years had been
selling used books and vinyl to the underground market, was
finally closing its doors, and I scooped up about 50 albums for a
buck apiece. Knowing I couldn't take everything home, I only
bought locally pressed items that never make it to the mainland,
let alone thrift shops. I had to be selective. I picked out what
seemed to be the purest or most ethnic stuff: LPs with Hula
maidens swaying next to gourds and palm trees. LPs with the most
predictable wacky Hawaiian settings on the cover that contained
the raw deal inside.
As soon as I pawed past the
clearly unusual cover of Pieces of Eight (I was trying not
to buy records by white guys - haoles if you will), something
stopped me, and I had to go back. Here's some haole cat who looks
like Gary Cooper wearing a Skipper hat on the cover of an album
with a pirate-like title. What the hell is he doing here? I turn
the cover over and ponder these sketches of docks, seagulls,
ships, barnacles, islands, tikis...STOP RIGHT THERE - TIKIS?
Noticing the name of the steel guitar player as Hawaiian, I
figure what the hell, this must be worth a buck. I boxed my
purchases and mailed `em back to the mainland, mystified and
wondering what the hell that was all about?
Of course, in a stack of 50 LPs (
and 50 78's procured in the basement of an old lady's house it
was my good fortune to raid), this was definitely the first thing
I had to check out. I pretty much knew what the rest would sound
like, the individual favorites would come later. Who the hell was
this Polynesian Pirate guy? That had to be answered. On first
spin, it became clear that this was a winner. A cheap-sounding
Chinese gong blasted a tinny, echoless introduction to
“China Nights,” which apparently had been a good place
for Page's backing group, The Island-Aires to “live and
love.” So it's the decadence of the wandering seaman we're
dealing with already. Next up, it's as flipped as it's ever gonna
get, as we are introduced to Paul Page...narrating
“When Sam Comes Back to Samoa.” (Can this guy actually sing,
or is this just a put on?):
Now Sam's been gone for a long, long time
while he's been away
Rock `n Roll has come & gone
and Jazz is here to stay!
When Sam goes back to Samoa
He'll have to change all his
wicky-wacky-wu* (hardly actual Samoan language, friends)
for to Swing and Sway, the Island
Way
means Rock-A-Hula baby, I love you
Rock-A-Hula honey, I love you
It's pretty clear from this
statement that the album came out sometime after the release of
the Elvis Presley film “Blue Hawaii” and before
February 7, 1964.
Page comes off like a gracious
host on the entire LP. The Island-Aires sing a few genius numbers
(“Ports O' Call,” “Matey” and the peppy
“Let's Have a Luau”), Bernie Kaii Lewis plays some
splendid steel guitar solos on “Beyond the Reef” and
“Sweet Someone,” and Page lays down some fine
benedictions himself. Most of the tunes included are originals,
and some lines, perhaps, only Page can sing in his own inimitable
style:
It doesn't cost a cent for her
upkeep
for there's nothing that she
needs!
All she wears is a great big smile
and a little string of beads
(“My Fiji Island Queen”)
Then there's the big emotional
number, “Castaway.” Backed by Bernie Kaii Lewis' sad
steel guitar, a despondent Page slowly repeats “Castaway.
Castaway. Castaway. Castaway..” in such a reflective tone
that it's obvious he's adrift, and a dreamlike states takes hold:
Once I had my love beside me
in a harbor called home
and now without my love to guide
me
I'm just a derelict on the foam
The album ends with the
“Pacific Farewell Medley” representing New Zealand's
Maori (“Now Is The Hour”), The Philippines
(“Philippine Farewell”), Japan (“Sayanara”),
Tahiti (“E Maururu A Vaai) and Hawaii (“Aloha
Oe”). Over Bernie's steel guitar, Page recites a descriptive
Don Blanding poem called “Aloha Oe” that echoes this
most famous melody of the islands. You're swept away, the
masterpiece is in the bag, and you wonder “where is this
guy, and what the hell is he doing now?” 
I caught up with Paul Page
through ASCAP, whose logo is proudly emblazoned on the back cover
of every Paul Page album I've seen. In fact, one of the oddball
things about Page's liner notes is the way he boasts about his
membership in the song publishing organization. He's 85 years old
now, and the rough life of a seafaring beachcomber has caught up
with him. His hearing is almost gone, and in the past two years
it's been getting tough for him to remember all the details of
his illustrious, exotic career. Once a male model who auditioned
for a part against a young John Wayne, Page now fittingly wears
an eye patch. The ravages of hard drinking and wild women in
various ports have taken their toll. The guy in Old Spice
commercial plays a role; Paul Page lived it and wrote songs to
tell the tale.
“I was quite a rounder in my
day...there's too much to tell. I was busy modeling for
photographers and working on radio. I knew so many women in my
modeling days, I must've gone to bed with over 400 women. Isn't
that awful? Terrible...and I never once every had any kind of
disease. I'm clean.”
Page was reared in Indiana, and
by the time he was in high school became “the youngest
commercial newspaper editor in the United States” he brags.
“Walter Winchell once called me the multiple man, because I
had so many amazing talents...at least a dozen of `em that I made
money on.” Shortly after graduation he relocated to Juneau,
Alaska and got a job with a small newspaper. He also kick started
his music career, playing live on the local airwaves. “I had
a radio program up in Alaska for the O.C. Smith Typewriter
Company, and one day I looked over in the control room and there
sat Will Rogers. He comes out and says, `You're good, kid. You
ain't gonna stay up here in Alaska, are ya?' I says `I ain't?'
Well, he says `Maybe ain't ain't right, but I know a lot of
people who ain't sayin' ain't, they ain't ain'tin.' Think about
it...”
With this wisdom and
encouragement from an American folk hero of such magnitude, Page
took his Alaskan experience and brought it back home to nearby
Chicago. “I always liked Hawaiian music. `Pages of Memory'
was the name of my radio show on the NBC network, and I had fan
clubs all over North America. We did a program every morning at
the head of `The Breakfast Club.' I just played and sang on piano
and organ, all by myself, and I wrote the script. I did `My Isle
of Golden Dream,' which was written by the composer of the
Breakfast Club theme, Walter Blaufuss. So I got this Hawaiian
band together and Art Reams became my manager. We toured the
country, and an NBC producer came into the nightclub to hear me
sing and play. That night they hired me, offering me a 10-year
contract on NBC. This all happened around Pearl Harbor Day,
December 7th, 1942.”
It was during these radio
broadcasts that Page began to incorporate the element of
Polynesian poetry. He was especially inspired by Don Blanding,
the “Poet Laureate” of Hawaii whose 1928 book
“Vagabond's House” featured the verse of a drifting
beachcomber and cameo-styled illustrations of island scenery.
Paul Page would soon adapt Blanding's art style to the exotica
environment, but initially Page concentrated on Blanding's poetic
dream world to conjure up a floor show atmosphere unique in its
time (and non-existent today).
When Page came in off the road,
he developed modeling as a sideline income. “I was a very
popular photographers model for magazines. About that time I
auditioned for apart in a movie with John Wayne. He was the same
size I was.” On the West Coast trip Page made contact with
Sol Hoopi, the legendary lap steel guitarist reputed to have
inspired both bottleneck/slide blues musicians and country
artists in the development of the pedal steel guitar. Hoopi also
headed up a booking agency in Hollywood - the industry relied on
him to provide dark-skinned Hawaiians as extras in both the
popular Polynesian films of the era, such as Bing Crosby's Waikiki
Wedding, and in Westerns, where the kanakas and wahines came
in handy as Native Americans. Hoopi's connections eventually
lured Paul Page to Los Angeles.
“I worked at The Seven Seas
in Hollywood with Sol Hoopi, the nightclub across from Grauman's
Chinese Theater. I played Hammond organ and MC'd the floor shows
with Lulu Mansfield.” The Seven Seas was indeed a glamorous
night spot during the glory days of Hollywood's Dream Factory
era. L.A.'s proximity to the Hawaiian Islands made the city a
Mecca for the Hawaiian music craze of the 1920's, and clubs like
The Hula Hutt, The Singapore Spa, Hawaiian Village and Hawaiian
Paradise sprang up to accommodate the action. Even Clifton's
Cafeteria downtown became a neon-tropic-art-deco paradise. Paul
Page eased into this scenario in the early 1940s: “I moved
my radio program to the NBC studios at Sunset and Vine, and then
I'd go over and do The Seven Seas. I had my fun at the
nightclub...that was my job as an entertainer.” When asked
what he did on his day off, his answer was simple enough:
“Slept.”
At the advent of the television
era in 1949, Page hosted the very first Polynesian T.V. show,
which was an extension of his radio show and his floor show at
The Seven Seas. “I had the Starr sisters in my band, a vocal
trio. Kay Starr was one of `em. She became famous on her own, and
I had five hula gals in my big band. Five Hula gals and three
caucasian sisters. They were all good.” However, an accident
soon forced Page off the air for a while, and he had to start all
over when he got well.
In the
meantime, the exotica craze began to kick in hard in the Los
Angeles area. Don the Beachcomber's became the hip Hollywood
haunt where Clark Gable and his pals hung out. Martin Denny was
playing in the bar while proprietor Donn Beach was busy inventing
the Mai Tai and a slew of now-famous tropical drinks. Trader
Vic's became San Francisco's answer to the reverie, and The Luau
in Beverly Hills became a swanky alternative for the posh set.
Tiki became the God of Recreation as soldiers continued to return
to the Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro. James Michener's South
Pacific was a Broadway smash, and Thor Heyerdah's adventure
book Kon Tiki set the tone of Los Angeles during the
Truman era. Soon the area was overwhelmed with tiki apartment
complexes, a surfing craze and knock-off tiki restaurants by the
dozens. Paul Page had little trouble finding work.
“I played at a restaurant
called `Pago Pago' off and on for 10 years. A columnist in Van
Nuys said I was the most popular entertainer in the San Fernando
Valley...that's a big valley, you know.” Coincidentally, one
of Page's best tunes was titled “Pago Pago,” kicking
off a personal trend wherein Paul Page songs (and LP's) would be
named after tiki restaurants in the Greater Los Angeles area.
Page worked at the “Pieces of Eight” in Marina Del Rey
and sure enough, a great tune and an entire LP bore that name.
Then there was the “Castaway” in Glendale, which was
another great song and LP title. Finally, there was the
“Ports of Call” in San Pedro, and of course Page did
not miss the opportunity to name a cool song after this
establishment, and follow it up with an LP bearing the moniker.
“Down there, south of Los Angeles, I used to have an office
right near the Port of Los Angeles. That album sold well in San
Pedro...” Sheesh! Page went so far as to use the actual
logos of these restaurants on the album covers. Exploitation of
the best kind, indeed.
While all this was happening,
Page began to pursue his art career as well. “I sold some
paintings for $4,000 to $5,000 and had a couple of art exhibits.
One was at the Hollywood Musicians Union and another one was at
Barker Brothers department store in Los Angeles. Don Blanding
introduced me to the public...I loved him, and he loved me. He
used to come in and see me all the time when I played at the
Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. I did an album of his poetry after
he passed away called `I Remember Blanding.'” Blanding
provided Page with inspiration on the canvas and in verse, and
this album was really over the top. Bernie Kaii Lewis provided
ethereal steel guitar backdrop to Page's loving narration of
Blanding's best work, and in turn the LP holds up as an intense
artistic departure for Page as well; it's his Pet Sounds,
his “Gates of Eden,” it's the Forever Changes of
the Paul Page catalog.
Keep in mind that Paul Page was
pretty much making a living off a Los Angeles trend in the
restaurant business. He'd make a nightly wage as a performer, a
few dollars off of the D.I.Y. albums he was producing, and some
dough perhaps from a modeling gig here and there. To bring in
extra cash, Page indulged in two areas that can now be seen as
extremely hip and ahead of their time. “I wrote songs for
amateur songwriters in Hollywood for a song shark company. They'd
send in their lyrics, and I'd write the music and record `e (the
songs). Magazine ads, you know, for songwriters.”
Hmmmnnnn...Paul Page also shared two vocations with recent
phenomenon Harvey Sid Fisher: modeling and astrology songs. Some
three decades before the unintentional novelty success of the
bewildered Harvey Sid, Paul Page released 12 45RPM singles, years
before any hippie astrology trend. One side featured an
astrological analysis, and the flip had a song representing the
month. He set up a separate record label for these ditties
called, you guessed it, Astrology Records.
Page was beginning to turn out
albums at a consistent rate too, and the quality never suffered.
He used the best talent around, which is odd for such independent
releases, but Page certainly had the respect of the Hawaiian
music community. “I worked with Jerry Byrd. He's the
greatest steel guitarist in the business. Bernie Kaii Lewis was
actually the greatest of them all, but he died too soon. He was
good, I recorded with him a lot. He could play anything...he did
'Nova' on solo steel guitar - imagine that? You could play it on
piano, but nobody could play it on steel guitar - it's too
difficult. He could, though. I know all those Hawaiians; used to
speak the language. Dick McIntire, Lani McIntire, Ray Kinney
Alfred Apaka...all of `em. Even Harry Owens.”
Paul Page sounded like none of
them. What he accomplished in these individualistic recordings
was unique. Completely based in a Hawaiian sound, his songs end
up sounding like Polynesian sea shanties, with spoken word
dramatics coloring the dynamic mix. By the time Page was making
records, Martin Denny had become popular with “Quiet
Village,” so in turn, Paul Page included an insane, diffused
combination of tropical sound effects. He didn't bother to have
his musicians shout out bird calls in time with the music,
however. On his masterful Hawaiian Honeymoon album, the
sound effects are somewhat arbitrarily laid on. They don't match
the rhythm of the songs, but after repeated listening you get
accustomed to what is initially scary stuff. One especially
chilling moment, is the chant tune “Au-we Wahine,”
where the jungle drums clash with the teeth of some god-forsaken
jungle animal that I won't attempt to identify. Then there's his
“Big Island concept album” called The Big Island
Says Aloha, where Page has deftly chosen all tunes featuring
references to Big Island locales. It's true genius to sit back
and revel in tunes like “Akaka Falls,” “Hilo
March,” “Chicken Kona Kaii” and “Little Grass
Shack in Kealakelua, Hawaii.”
By this time, Page had made his
exit from Los Angeles to the island of Hawaii. “I played the
Kona Coast, and was the best known entertainer on the Big Island.
I worked for the Kona Steak House and I wrote for the Kona Hilton
Hotel. I played all over the islands, and knew Martin Denny well.
I'd been out to his house many times in Honolulu, and he used to
come and see me when I played.” Paul Page became so firmly
entrenched in the culture that he became the president of the
Hawaiian Professional Songwriters Society. For their newspaper,
he penned a cartoon column as “Chief Wahanui.” His love
for the music had consumed his being. On his first LP recorded in
Hawaii (Passport to Paradise) Page even showed a social
consciousness in his lyrics:
Across the
water see how they rise
concrete to the skies
Tall tiki towers reminding me,
Hawaii's on the go
and this I know
Au E Mau Ke Ea O Kaina I Kapono
just as true as in kamehameha's
day
and the blue island sky will
reflect in the water
if we all try to keep it that way
(“Ala Wai Blues”)
He'd definitely flipped - big
time. So firmly entrenched in the home of his first love, Passport
to Paradise includes perhaps the greatest tribute to Hawaiian
music ever recorded, “The Big Luau in the Sky.” When I
brought this song up, it didn't take long for the withered memory
of Paul Page to strike up the words off the top of this head.
“Oh yeah, that was one of my favorites. There's a narrated
verse where I mention practically every important Hawaiian
musician of this century - you name `em, I mention `em all.”
