Boddy Fo

by Tiffany Edwards

I ask a waitress at Shaka's Restaurant in Na'alehu if she knows Buddy Fo.
"He's big-time," she says, proud to call the No Hoku Hano Hano Lifetime Achievement Award winner and his wife Sammi patrons and fellow residents of Ka'u.
The waitress spots the couple's car entering the gravel parking lot and, as soon as the Fos are seated, is at the table asking if they're going to have their usual: a couple of red wines.
In this small town, it would be difficult for Buddy and Sammi Fo not to stand out. The couple has charisma.
Fo has been in show business for 50 over years, and married to Sammi for 43 of them. Aside from exuding stardom, it is striking how they laugh and smile at each other, and help finish each other's sentences.
Buddy, 74, isn't much of a braggart, so Sammi helps out by recalling that Buddy's first group, The Invitations, was the first Hawai'i group to record with a major label: Liberty Records, the modern-day Capitol Records.
Sammi, who is 10 years younger, knew all about The Invitations when she met Buddy. "They were really famous," she recalls.
Buddy grew up on O'ahu in a family of musicians. He went to Roosevelt High School in Honolulu and was a beach boy. Back in 1955 there were only three hotels in Waikiki, and there were still plenty of bungalows and plumeria trees. Fo was 22 when he formed The Invitations with Johnny Costello, Sunny Kamaka and Clem Low. Fo played congas and drums; Sunny was on guitar; Johnny played bass; and Clem was the keyboardist. It was four- and five-part harmony; nobody read music, so everyone played by ear.
"We would ride around in an old junk car [a 1936 Ford] that was like a sound room with the windows rolled up," Buddy recalls. "We would be driving up and down Kalakaua Avenue learning our parts."
The Invitations' first gig was at the Korean Village at the International Marketplace.
"The music was ahead of its time," Buddy says. Martin Denny, who was then developing his patented "tiki lounge lizard" style down the road at Don the Beachcomber, noticed that The Invitations' line of patrons extended past a couple of buildings.
"Ever thought of recording?" Denny asked Fo.
A couple of days later, Denny introduced him to the owner of Liberty Records. After that initial meet 'n' greet, the Liberty Records A&R people told The Invitations they liked the sound, but "we want to sweeten it, to add some strings to it."
Next thing they knew, The Invitations were sitting in a Hollywood office with the number one "stringer" at the time, Russ Garcia, who did background arrangements for the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. At 8 a.m. the following morning the group was in the studio with six cellists and five guitarists.
"This is before rock hit. The discipline in music was marvelous. These were studio musicians. I walked in, I couldn't believe it," Fo recalls, thinking about the professionalism of those cellists and guitarists. "When you learn from these masters, it was such an honor."
Buddy says that day set his standard for the music business. "I was so taken by the musicians, I had tears."
The Invitations, later known as Buddy Fo and The Invitations, recorded three albums before breaking up. Then Fo went on to play with Denny for five years.
His career also included a stint in Las Vegas in the early 1960s, playing at the Sands Hotel-back in the days when Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and the rest of the Rat Pack regularly played the Main Room, and the Mob held sway. Then, when he was asked to perform at a brand new hotel on Maui, Buddy and Sammi opted to return to the islands.
Living on Maui over 30 years, Buddy became a headliner at the Ka'anapali Beach Hotel for five years, and then had a Hawaiian cowboy show at the Maui Tropical Plantation for a decade. Fo was also the radio DJ "Maui Bud" for 15 years and coined the phrase, "Put a little soul in your poi bowl."
In the 1990s, overwhelmed by the changes in Hawai'i, the couple bought an RV and traveled around the mainland. They were living in Montana when they were called back to Hawai'i in 2002 by, of all people, Don Ho, to perform in the Don Ho Show.
After their time with Ho, Buddy and Sammi became an act themselves, performing again in Waikiki at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel's Mai Tai Bar.
They stayed in Honolulu until they couldn't afford a place to live, and moved to Ocean View in 2006. That same year, Buddy released his album Hawaiian Man, Nostalgic Journey, which was nominated best Hawaiian Jazz Album, and he received his Hawaiian Grammy.
Today the couple performs music for hula and at private gigs. To host a Buddy Fo home concert, or to reach Buddy and Sammi, visit buddyfo.com.

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