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They’re the best kind of local old-timers. The kind that alludes to a gentler, more authentic age, an age where the Duke Kahanamoku rode to the shore and the Waikiki beach boys serenaded visitors at the Moana Surfrider.
Inspired by the Waikiki-style singers of those days, like O’ahu-classic Johnny Alameda, Wally and Polei Palmeira are reminiscence in action.
The couple, a duo both in musical performances and life, has been married since September, 1955. Embodying elegance with a ’50s Hawai’i lounge-quality, the Palmeiras are sure to conjure up nostalgia and a deep appreciation for what many of us thought was lost.
Wally, on guitar, and Polei, on xylophone, are more than just your standard Hawaiian music duo, and they’ve put in their time.
They met in Long Beach, Calif., in the ‘50s while both working at a hula show—Wally as a musician, and Polei as a dancer.
As the show’s crew became smaller, Wally adapted the lineup to include the dancers playing music as well.
The couple played for 15 years at the Kaua‘i Sheraton before Hurricane ‘Iwa ran them out, Polei said.
Since then, they’ve made the rounds at the Westin and the Hanalei Bay Resort, with a circuit that now mostly includes Eastside’s Hukilau Lanai and Trees, Wally said.
Talking story with Wally is a lot like listening to his and his wife’s music: it hearkens to a simpler time. Wally has plenty of stories of the way Kaua‘i used to be, including remembering his days growing up in Wailua and Kapa’a and walking four miles to the $.09 movies at the old Pono Theatre. It was on that trek that he once hitched a ride home in Spaniard’s Model A Ford. (A Model T driver would often pass him on that walk but wouldn’t stop, he said.)
Though that story in itself remembers old Kaua’i, for the Palmeiras, nostalgia runs deeper than anecdotes. The couple incorporates that element into a discipline and taste, exemplified best perhaps by the outfits Polei coordinates for every show – that and their dedication to playing Hawaiian music above all else.
“When people come here they want to hear Hawaiian,” Wally said, adding they do keep Mainland mainstays such as Elvis and Sinatra in their repertoire to please visitors. That said, the couple also works to make the audience remember a piece of Hawai’i.
“A young lady asked if we could play Princess Pupule,” Wally said. “Her mother brought her to the islands and she remembered hearing it as a child. No one on the other islands could play it. But we could,” he added. “She cried when we did.”
