1. Lena Machado was a Native Hawaiian singer, composer, and ukulele player, known as "Hawaii's Songbird".
20 Facts About Lena Machado
1. 2.
Lena Machado was among the first group of musical artists honored by the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1995.
3.
Lena Machado sold leis on the Honolulu piers as a child, and aspired to become a singer like the women she saw greeting incoming passengers.
4.
Lena Machado was hanai at birth by Mary Davis Pan and her husband Loon Pan.
5.
Nevertheless, Lena Machado learned to play the ukulele and won first prize singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" in a contest her birth family entered her into.
6.
Lena Machado's singing style has been described as a yodel, female falsetto, or "ha'i".
7.
Lena Machado was part of the vanguard of Hawaiian women who sang in this style.
8.
Lena Machado's initial booking on KGU was meant to be a 10-minute set.
9.
At age 22, she married her first husband, police officer Luciano K Machado, with whom she formed The Machado Troupe consisting of their combined family members.
10.
That same year, Lena Machado took first prize at a singing contest in Honolulu.
11.
Lena Machado was hired by George Paele Mossman as a Hawaiian dance and singing instructor at his newly opened Bell Tone Studio of Music.
12.
Lena Machado was featured on a number of the records, with a variety of different other singers.
13.
Lena Machado was chosen to be one of the band's soloists for the pageant, along with Nani Alapai and Lizzie Alohikea.
14.
In 1930, Lena Machado starred in a musical stage production of "White Shadows", possibly inspired by the 1928 film White Shadows in the South Seas.
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When Charles E King took over as bandmaster, Lena resigned in 1931 over a salary dispute and devoted her energies to The Machado Troupe.
16.
Lena Machado returned to the band under the direction of Frank J Vierra.
17.
Several sources claim Lena Machado was the first woman in the United States to host her own radio show; however, The Kate Smith Hour began on CBS Radio in 1931 and continued into the next decade.
18.
Lena Machado continued to perform in Hawaii, and in July 1952 took her troupe to Chicago, to perform at "Harry's Waikiki" nightclub owned by Hawaii residents Harry and Alice Nakamura.
19.
Lena Machado joined the Royal Hawaiian Band in 1971, under director Kenneth K Kawashima, for a Veterans Day concert at Kapiolani Park.
20.
In 1995, Lena Machado was in the first group of entertainers honored by the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame.