MORE THAN JUST 15 MINUTES OF FAME… A LIFETIME OF FRIENDSHIP WITH THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB GANG.

Back in the summer of 2005, we had a surprise birthday party for Ku’u Lei Bernardino, our mentor at the Boys and Girls Club at the Waialae Country Club. As a gift to Ku’u Lei, we decided to do a “Summer Jazz” show. We tried our best to remember the routines and some songs weren’t in any shows so we made our own choreography and sang some of the songs she liked. The first official Summer Jazz was in 1982 and ended in somewhere in the late 90’s.

Watching old videos of our shows, Ron always wished he could have been a part of our gang growing up and when asked to emcee the event, he agreed immediately. Then we had to make some changes and needed a new lead singer to open the show. The other members just said to have Ron learn and sing the opening number and he agreed. He was now an official cast member of a Summer Jazz show…better late than never. During rehearsals for the show, he became close to many of the other former club members and built many great friendships that would last a lifetime.

Thank you for opening up your lives to him. He told me he how nice it felt to be a part of a a group of friends that were more like a family then just friends and understood why we remained friends after all these years.

Ron loved to sing, and gave it all that night singing the opening number and he also danced and sang in a few other songs that night as well. Singing to close to 200 guests that night was and absolute dream come true for him.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER…

One of Ron’s favorite artist was Olivia Newton-John. He was able to meet her in person chat with her for a few minutes in Las Vegas after watching her perform her hits from the front row.

Although “Suspended In Time”, his favorite from Olivia was not on her set list that night, but to have Olivia as part of his 50th birthday celebration was a dream come true.

He also had a surprise dinner party with friends and family that were in town or lived in Las Vegas for his milestone birthday!

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER…PART TWO

Ron loved singing Richard Marx songs. Richard Marx wrote many hit songs for lots of artists and most times did his own recording before or after they were sent to the artists. He loved listening to the original arrangement of the songs he worte. Ron’s all time favorite was actually a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and “Hazard”. If these songs came on in the car as he was parking, he always set the songs to replay from the beginning when he jumped in the car. “Now and Forever” and “Hazard” was his go to song at karaoke.

Like Olivia, he got to sit front and center at a Richard Marx concert here in Honolulu and got to meet him and talk to him after the concert.

Richard Marx thanked Ron for being such a great fan by ripping off his setlist page off the wall, wrote a little note and gave it to him. He told me after the concert that it’s normal for fellow artists to exchange notes... After all, Ron did have his 15 minutes of fame at a sold out event a few years back.

SOMEWHERE

Now this is a very special song that dates back to 2002 when we first met. He promised me that one day this song will be true for the both of us. We just have to be patient.

A few years later, he heard Katherine McPhee perform this song and he said that it was the best version of this song.

Now when I hear this song, it will always remind me of what he told mr.. He never broke a promise to me.

A TALE TO TELL…

Ron loved Madonna’s songwriting skills and loved to watch her first concert on iTunes all the time. He said during her early stage of her career, she was always so confident and always admired her for that.

His all time favorite ballad by Madonna was Live To Tell. At the end of the day, we always had our “Live To Tell” moment and we shared what was going on with us and the people around us by promising never to tell anyone else.

He said in the past there were so many secrets and things left in the dark, he wanted to make sure we never got to that stage so we told each other everything. I think thats on of the reasons we had such a long and great relationship. Quite a few people from all walk of life told me they wished that their relationship was like ours. It wasn’t perfect, but we had nothing to hide. Listen to the lyrics closely when you listen to this song. He also said it was a difficult song to sing at karaoke and was always trying to sing it a little different every time he heard this song so he can sing it one day with ease at karaoke.

THANK YOU ONE MOMENT PLEASE…

Although he did like making fun of the scripts my office used at work, that’s not the reason he liked this song. I know he loved to sing this song and again watched this performance on YouTube over and over. He sang it a few times at karaoke but he never really told me why he loved this song.

He became a bigger fan of her music after Whitney passed away. He really liked one of the last songs she recorded “I Look To You” .

WHY ARE WE LISTENING TO THIS?

One day, I just got tired of where the main pop music was going so I turned to country music. Ron started to notice the rotation of country on the playlist in the car and asked me why we are now listening to country. Before the new wave of country came out, I started watching country videos on YouTube and Ron actually started liking the songs. This one was his favorite cause it made him recognize the voices of the old and new country artists.

He loved how the song flowed and helped him recognize and remember the legendary country singers and see the faces behind the more current ones.

PAISLEY & UNDERWOOD

As his love and appreciation of country music grew, he really loved the chemistry between Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. He looked up whatever clips he could find on them and enjoyed watching them. Although Carrie is not in this song, this was one of Ron’s favorite songs.

Although this song was released pre-COVID, he added this song to his karaoke list so he could sing it when everything opened up again. We never made it back to go sing on this earth but I have a feeling he got to sing it somewhere in heaven.

DID RON REALLY ABANDON MARIAH?

Like all of us, when Mariah Carey hit the charts, everyone became a big fan including Ron. We would often sit in the Kapolei Room (It’s what we call the living room since it fits all the furniture that was in the living room when I owned my first home in Kapolei) and we would talk about music for days. After Mariah took a break and made a comeback, I would still download her new albums but Ron told me he was no longer that interested in her music. He would only like one or two songs and would tell me he had enough. He stopped listening to her old stuff for awhile too until they released a DVD of an old concert she did in Japan.

It surprised me when he told me that he didn’t need to listen to her new stuff because he always looked forward to her new releases.

“Always Be My Baby”, “My All”, “Emotions” and “Vanishing” were his favorite Mariah Songs.