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At 100 years old, he's found a tiny musical destiny
Bill Tapia spent the 20th century playing guitar with jazz greats. He's spending the 21st as a ukulele man.
By DEEPA BHARATH
The Orange County Register
WESTMINSTER As Bill Tapia held his ukulele on stage in the Monarch Room of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, the last 100 years of his life flashed before his eyes like a vision in IMAX.
Tapia saw himself, little Willy, dishing out 75 cents from his beat-up coffee can to buy his first ukulele from a beer-bellied folk singer.
He saw himself as Young Willy, 10, giving ukulele lessons to grown men. Willy was the first in the islands, or, for that matter, anywhere, to produce divine jazz from, yes, a ukulele.
He even saw himself as the 12-year-old who quit school to hit the road and entertain the masses with a vaudeville group. That's how he became Bill Tapia, the accomplished jazz guitarist, who jammed with such all-time greats as Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Billy Holiday, Fats Waller and Charlie Barnett.
A century galloped by and Tapia was back where he started.
The 100-year-old stood, still elegant, in his tuxedo and shimmering silver hair and beard; his still-nimble fingers decked in rings of turquoise and gold, his neck adorned with a ruby encrusted golden crucifix.
He was at home, in Honolulu, at the same hotel where he had performed as a young man.
Holding a ukulele.
Read the rest of the article and see more pictures of Mr Tapia at the link.