Artist:
Myrtle K. Hilo
Album: The Singing Cab Driver
CD Id: SLCD-2053
= Play short MP3 sound clip
| Track |
Song
Title |
Time |
| 1 |
Kaimuku Hula |
02:00 |
| 2 |
Ko Mai'i Ho'eu'eu |
02:13 |
| 3 |
Lover's Prayer |
02:39 |
| 4 |
Hali'i Ka Moena |
01:52 |
| 5 |
Ha'u Ha'u E |
01:18 |
| 6 |
Sweet Someone |
03:08 |
| 7 |
Manuela's Girl |
02:17 |
| 8 |
I'll Remember You |
03:32 |
| 9 |
Ma'ane'i Mai Oe |
02:26 |
| 10 |
Keiki No Punalu'u |
02:15 |
| 11 |
Waiahole E |
01:59 |
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contact Lehua Records, the owner of this recording, about the licensing
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To buy this album, please contact one of our distributors listed below.
MDI Distribution, Inc.
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Phone: (404) 934-9226
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 The picture on the front cover is a gag ... but the term "singing cab driver" is not. Myrtle K. Hilo is a full time independent cab driver in Honolulu and drives her own brand new station wagon taxi. (No, the 1932 Ford in the picture is not the one she really drives.) She is a taxi driver by choice. "I have a ball and really wouldn't want to give it up for a full time job in show business."
However Myrtle is "on" whether she's in the driver's seat of her cab, on stage at a night club, or in front of a recording microphone. She has been singing professionally since she was 14 ... and although she has made a number of "singles" this is her first album.
In "The Singing Cab Driver" Myrtle has recorded the kind of songs which are heard not perhaps at a tourist luau in Waikiki... but more likely at an informal party at someone's home. These are fun songs mostly and Myrtle has fun singing them. Some of them are sentimental, though . . . and these you'll hear during the last hours of that Hawaiian party when most of the guests have gone and memories of "Sweet Someone" somehow seem appropriate.
To Pilahi Paki who wrote the Hawaiian words to those two songs as well as the Hawaiian to "I'll Remember You" and "Lover's Prayer" mahalo nui loa for a sensitive treatment of these kamaaina favorites. The Hawaiian words to "Lover's Prayer" were written by Pilahi after hearing Myrtle sing the English version at Makua Beach during the filming of "Hawaii." (Myrtle was an extra and Pilahi was one of Queen Malama's ladies-in-waiting.)
"Manuela's Girl" is Momi Jones' perfect answer to the old standard "Manuela Boy." and Myrtle's voice seems to have been made especially for Lena Machado's "Ma'ane'i Mai Oe."
These are two brand new songs — "Keiki No Punalu'u" which tells of the affection of a young boy for a baby bird which he raised to adulthood ... and "Waiahole E" describing the effects of a potent reddish beverage favored by residents of Waiahole on Oahu. Both songs were written by Myrtle's uncle, Albert Woodward.
The rest of the album is made up of "rascal" songs, the enjoyment of which is derived as much from their fine rhythm as from the risque meaning of the Hawaiian words.
So if you would like to attend a real Hawaiian party . . . raise your glass high . . . Kamau Kiaha . . . and join the fun with Myrtle K. Hilo . . . the "singing cab driver."
Ed Kahoolono Michelman
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