[Tikievents] Tiki obit

[Otto <otto@tikinews.com>]

It is with extreme regret that I bring the following news, via a tip 
from John McGarrah.
Several years ago I ran a story on Freddie Baker in Tiki News. 
Ironically I had recently called him to request he perform at Tiki 
Oasis.

Freddie was one of the last of his kind - a Tiki lounge performer.

He will be appreciated at the big luau in the sky

Albuquerque Journal Obituaries  Feb. 8th, 2007

FreddyBaker -
Musician Brought taste of Hawaii to Duke City

By Dan Mayfield, Journal Staff Writer

    For more than a dozen years Freddy "Kekaulike" Baker played his ukulele
and electric piano at the New Chinatown Restaurant.
    For Birthdays, holidays, or any special event, fans would flock to the
little Polynesian Lounge inside the restaurant on Central Avenue and dance a
little hula while Baker sang classics such as "Tiny Bubbles."
    Baker, who until last week was performing dinner shows at the Town House
Restaurant, died Monday night at the age of  85 after a short illness, said
his wife, Jane Ong-Baker.
    Baker who had lived and performed in Albuquerque since the mid-1960's,
was born in Honolulu on Feb. 7, 1921.  By the time he was 13 he was performing,
playing rhythm ukelele in a band.
    Baker's first gig was a performance for a Hawaiian ladies' glee club
event when President Roosevelt dedicated the Ala Moana Beachpark in Waikiki.
    It kicked of a career that thrived throughout the 1930s and 1940s in
Hawaii.  He played for several of Hawaii's most popular musicians at night and
taught surfing during the day.
    When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Baker was on the island.  He never served
in the military, Ong-Baker said, because he was working for the telephone
company and kept the communications lines up and running on the 
Hawaiian Islands.
    After the war, Baker came to the mainland and tried to work as a musician
in Los Angeles.  He didn't get work playing, but he did as an actor.  He was
an extra - as an American Indian - in the film "Hell's Gate" and later had
small roles in "Road to  Bali" with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and "In The Navy"
with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, according to a biography of Baker.
    He did return to playing music, as "Freddy Kekaulike Baker and the
Polynesians", and toured the country.  His timing was spot on.  In 1959, Hawaii
became the 50th state.  All things Hawaiian were popular, and he was 
booked at the
Albuquerque Skyline Nightclub on West Central and the old Alvarado Hotel.
    Jane Ong noticed him when he would visit her family's retaurants, the
Chinatown Restaurant on Gold and the U&I Cafe on Forth Street.
    By 1965, Ong-Baker said, the two were a couple and Baker was a regular
performer at the Tiki-Kai Nightclub, owned by the Ong family, and later the bar
at the New Chinatown.
    Baker's Hawaiian name Kekaulike means "fair and just," Ong-Baker said,
and Baker's local fans said it was a fitting name.    "The one thing, anytime
you were in his presence you felt transported to another world entirely.  (Jane
and Freddy) took that spirit of love, and you felt in the bosom of family and
for me it was like a
vacation anytime that I spent an evening at the Polynesian Lounge, " said
longtime Baker fan Erik Fredrickson.  "He was the real deal."
    Though Baker never recorded a CD, visitors to a Baker Memorial on Feb.
24th at French Mortuary, 105000 Lomas NE, will receive a special CD, Ong-Baker
said.
    "Freddy never wanted to make CDs.  He wanted to have fun and take it
easy.  We have some songs on cassette from the New Chinatown, so were 
putting some
songs together and we will put out a CD.
    "Mahalo means a special 'Thank You' to the Hawaiian people; once they
see that, they know it means 'with love.'  Aloha is saying Hello or goodbye,
but Mahalo Freddy, Mahalo," Ong-Baker said.

--
Otto von Stroheim

TikiOasis.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/09/WIGPBNVNTK1.DTL