Ghosts in Hawai’i: John Phillip Sousa and Bill Tapia

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(This is a special edition, from Hawai’i. The latest edition of the Acoustic Americana Music Guide’s “LIVE MUSIC EVENTS,” published May 14, 2013, is just a click away – or just below, depending on where you are reading this.)
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Ghosts in Hawai’i: John Phillip Sousa and Bill Tapia
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I am sitting in the lobby of the Moana Hotel on Wakliki Beach. And I see the ghost of John Phillip Sousa descending the stairs a few feet away, thanks to the vivid and memorable storytelling of the late Bill Tapia, the "Duke of Uke."

Here's why. Bill was turning 100. He was a guest for a performance-interview on "Tied to the Tracks" on the radio in Los Angeles. He was the oldest touring musician in the world and the only one still alive who had made music with John Phillip Sousa.

I asked Bill how that came about, and his atmospheric, descriptive words transported me to another world in another time. I am there now, and it's quite tangible, the ocean waves gently breaking outside, the scent of tropical flora and fresh cut pineapple, just as they were then. And I am on the very spot of Bill’s story. Once again, I hear him speaking to me, taking me with him to this same place where he was very young, long ago.


It's 1917. The famous John Phillip Sousa has brought his band to Hawaii. They're here for a War Bond ("Liberty Loan") drive. The US has entered World War One.

Bill is 9 years old. He is quite small for his age. He has never seen a marching band. He is excited because he is about to change that. He has made his way past the surreys and buggies and the rich people's horseless carriages, down to the street along the shore, down to the parade route. Everyone in Honolulu is there. The crowd is dense. And little Bill can't see the band. Desperate, he begins to worm his way through the crowd.

At last he reaches the street. The percussion section is going by. He has missed most of the 300+ member band. He begins to duck in and out of the people at the front, moving along the fringe of the wall of spectators. He tries to gain on the band. He can only stay even with them, all the way to the end of their route of march.

It's over. He didn't see Sousa. The crowd disperses. The band has gone to the hotel. Bill goes home. The most iconic marches ever written, Sousa's marches, are still playing in his head. His surreptitious time with them took hold. The little boy won't go to bed. He keeps the whole house awake all night, teaching hinself to play "Stars and Stripes Forever" -- on his ukulele.

Next day, without his mother knowing where he is going, he slips into the lobby of the band's hotel -- the only hotel on Waikiki Beach -- the Moana. Bill has tdken care to tell me the Moana was built in 1901, and the big, pink Royal Hawaiian would not be built until the twenties.

Bill slips into the Moana's lobby. He hides behind potted plants. It's the lobby where I'm sitting now. He lays low, waiting. At last, Sousa comes down the stairs. I am watching Sousa's ghost right now, descending to the lobby. And then the wisp of little nine-year-old Bill Tapia steps out with his uke and begins to play "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Sousa makes a beeline for the small boy. He stands in front of him, towering over little Bill. When the music is finished, Sousa asks, "Young man, what manner of instrument is that?"

Bill, practically trembling, replies, "Uhh, it's my ook-ooh-leh-leh, sir."

"Can you play anything else on it?'

"Uhh, yes."

"Well then, proceed, proceed."

Bill plays "Little Grass Shack." He plays his meager repertoire of old Hawai'ian favorites. Sousa stands, and listens.

Little Bill stops and looks up at the great man, hopefully, but unsure how it was received. Sousa blurts out, "Where's your mother?"

Bill figures he's doomed. "She's at home, sir."

"Take me to her."

Bill begins to imagine every horrible fate he has ever heard when kids share tales of abject terror.

At Bill's house, Sousa tells his mother, "Madam, we are at war and everyone must do their part. Your son is a national treasure. His talent is needed for the war effort."

Sousa and his "Jackies," the nickname for his wartime Navy Bluejackets Band, would indeed do their part, raising over $21 million for the war effort (an incredible sum at the time). Sousa himself, at age 62, had taken a Navy commision as a Lieutenant to lead the band, under the condition that he be paid $1 per month and that he would bunk with the band members.

His charismatic influence extended in every quarter. Bill dropped out of school at the age of nine and became a professional musician, touring with Sousa and the "Jackies" Band. Bill would never return to a classroom as a student, though he would spend many years as a teacher, while continuing his own studies of a vast variety of subjects through the rest of his life. He could hold his own with PhDs, the world's top musicians, and enthusiastic kids just starting to learn an instrument. Yes, he grew up a musician, playing banjo in the roaring twenties and changing to jazz guitar to play with all the famous Big Bands of the thirties and forties.

Bill married, had children, and was devoted to his wife his entire life. He never stopped mourning her death.

A financially successful musician, Bill accumulated am impressive collection of classic automobiles over many years. Away from music, that was his great joy. When his eyesight began to falter, he lovingly waxed and polished each car, one final time, then sold them all.

And through all of his long life, all his accomplishments and experiences, there was his ukulele, quietly waiting for him. He came back to the little four-string instrument in 2001 and enjoyed a final round of fame. He died at 102, just a few months after his final concert tour.

And now, drifting in from the veranda, past the giant banyan tree planted in 1904 that Bill Tapia and John Phillip Sousa gazed out upon, there are strains of music. A musician is performing the number-one most recorded song ever on the uke, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

That song dates, of course, to the 1939 classic, "The Wizard of Oz." And it's Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine to the Yellow Brick Road. Right here in the lobby of the elegant time-capsule of the Moana. Now a Japanese wedding party comes down the stairs. Mr. Sousa and I step aside for them. Little Bill grins from behind a Greek column. I smile back, a conspirator across time.
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Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
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