Fish and poi.

I don't even know what to say about this one.

Except this, of course - More Hawaii In Hi-Fi has brought me hours and hours and hours of utter and complete giddy joy. It is so ridiculously cheesy in almost every sense that a listener cannot help but feel uplifted.

My friend Emily found this in, of all places, the AV department's record collection at my college library. I think she had an innate ability to choose things that thoroughly and completely rock the house, because she grabbed this god damn thing and ran screaming with it all the way back to her room, where she proceeded to turn it into a legend.

We - my friends and I - built a culture around this album and, in particular, the track "Sheik of Araby." We had dance routines choreographed for it. We had mood lighting to accompany it. We had special Gin & Tonic events in which we gathered specifically to listen to it. Yes - that's how important this record became to us.

A little history of our treasured Leo Addeo, the man who brought us this classic LP, from our friends at Space Age Pop:

Addeo was one of RCA's key house arrangers for most of the 1950s and 1960s. An Italian American from Brooklyn, Addeo's specialty was Hawaiian music. He studied violin as a child, but switched to clarinet and saxophone in his teens when he noticed these instruments were in greater demand for local dance bands. He gradually moved from performing to arranging, working with Gene Krupa, Larry Clinton, and Frankie Carle.

Hugo Winterhalter hired Addeo as an orchestrator and brought him along when he moved to RCA in the early 1950s. Addeo was a steady producer for RCA, backing vocalists such as Vaughan Monroe and Don Cherry, arranging and conducting on numerous credited and uncredited instrumentals, and writing an occasional song. Addeo held down the marimba band corner for RCA's "Living" series, producing a respectable knock-off of Julius Wechter's Baja Marimba Band.

The Immortal Track List:

Click album title to download!

Leo Addeo & His Orchestra: More Hawaii In Hi-Fi

1) The Sheik Of Araby

2) Isle Of Paradise

3) Near You

4) Song Of India

5) Harbor Lights

6) Third Man Theme

7) Moon Of Manakoora

8) To You, Sweetheart, Aloha

9) Song Of The Islands

10) Red Sails In The Sunset

I assure you - this is one of the most powerful antidepressants around.

You will wonder at its power to transform you. No, to transport you - from the doldrums you're suffering through in today's wrecked society to a faraway land. A paradise of red lightbulbs, plastic vampire teeth, fish & poi, tiki glasses, paper umbrellas, vintage comic books, Tahitian Treat soda, the soothing sounds of waves crashing against a moondrenched shore...

And a sense that maybe everything is going to be okay after all.