Whatever
Happened To...
An update on past news
Some of the Aliis are
still onstage in WaikikiQuestion: What ever happened to the Aliis -- Carlos Barbosa, Joe Mundo, Benny Chong and Danny Couch?
Answer: The Aliis, who first achieved fame working with Don Ho at Duke Kahanamoku's in the mid-1960s and then enjoyed renewed popularity with a new generation of fans as a solo act in the 1980s, broke up almost 20 years ago.
The five original members of the group -- Al Akana, Rudy Aquino, Benny Chong, Manny Lagodlagod and Joe Mundo -- have performed together several times since then in reunion concerts with Ho.
Chong is semiretired but works with Ho in Waikiki. He also plays in an ukulele jazz duo with Byron Yasui. Chong contributed several tracks to a compilation album of solo ukulele recordings and is currently finishing his first solo ukulele album.
Mundo moved to the mainland in the early 1980s and is playing music in Seattle, according to Couch. Barbosa, who joined the Aliis after they left Duke's, is a member of Augie Rey's Little Big Band.
Bobby King, the Aliis' bassist in the 1970s and '80s, also works with Rey in Waikiki.
Couch, who joined the Aliis in 1981, recently closed a 13-year engagement at the Hale Koa Hotel and is talking to other Waikiki hotels about opening a new show.
He was named Internet Radio Artist of the Year at the Seventh Annual Hawaii Music Awards earlier this month, and will find out Tuesday if his current album, "Then & Now," made the final ballot for the 27th Annual Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in May.
Aquino lives on Maui and is still involved in music. Akana, who retired in 1981, lives on the Big Island and owns a gasoline and petroleum products distributorship.
Lagodlagod lives in Los Angeles and owns a hair salon.
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