Joe Mundo, Waikiki headliner who co-founded the Aliis, dies at 83

Joe Mundo, founding member of the Aliis, the group that was one of Waikiki’s showroom headliners from 1964 through the early 1980s, died Tuesday at his home in Auburn, Wash. He was 83.

Mark Mundo said his father, who retired as a Waikiki showroom entertainer in the mid-1980s, had “a very, very excellent life.”

“He had a very, very long career, a very, very excellent life,” Mundo said. “I think he lived very well until his health started to fail several years ago. He entertained on smaller scale up here (in Washington), working for a couple of the hotels. And he had some — he called them ‘public jobs,’ where he would play piano in public places like the luxury mall up there in Bellevue, Wash.”

Jose Gonzalez Mundo was born in New York. He came to Hawaii at the age of 11 when his father, Gaspar Mundo, a minister in the Assembly of God Church, was transferred to Hawaii.

By the time Joe Mundo graduated from Farrington High School, he was ready for a career in music. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and did his tour of duty with four other young Hawaiian musicians — Al Akana, Rudy Aquino, Benny Chong and Manny Lagodlagod — as members of the U.S. Air Force Band in Washington, D.C.

They returned to Hawaii not sure what they were going to do next. Chong said years later that he’d been thinking about “going back to school.” Then they met Don Ho.

Ho was looking for ­musicians for a Waikiki show and liked what he saw. He offered them $200 a week — good money for guys who’d been making $45 a month in the Air Force.

Don Ho &the Aliis opened at Duke Kahanamoku’s in the International Market Place in 1964. They quickly hit as the hottest act in Waikiki, selling out Duke’s night after night, recording several albums for Frank Sinatra’s Reprise record label and then playing dates on the mainland. Mundo was the act’s musical director and became known as one of the best arrangers in Waikiki. He also distinguished himself as a quick-witted comedian.

“We all had a good time on stage, but Joe was the comedian,” Chong said Wednesday. “Lots of antics and stuff. He was known for that. Like wearing that afro wig back when afros were in, like it was his real hair, and then midway through the show turning it around and then pulling it off.”

“The craziest thing I think Joe did was when we did parodies of different entertainers and he did Tina Turner, singing with a long wig and his sequined dress. It was good fun.”

Ho and the Aliis parted company in 1969. For the next 15 years they were Waikiki showroom headliners in their own right.

The Aliis and Ho returned to the International Market Place in 1981 for a reunion engagement at the showroom that had been Duke Kahanamoku’s in the 1960s but had since been renamed Don Ho’s. Don Ho &the Aliis were as hot a draw in 1981 as they had been in the 1960s, but the reunion ended when Ho moved to the Hilton Hawaiian Village Dome at the end of the year.

Solo headliners once again, the Aliis received two Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in 1982: Contemporary Album of the Year for their self-titled album, “The Aliis,” and Single of the Year for “You Are the Best of My Life.”

Mundo eventually left the group and moved to Washington state, but he returned for three sold-out reunion concerts with Ho in the years that followed.

The Aliis received the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

“At the end of his career, he was going to old folks’ homes and giving them entertainment because they didn’t really have much going on in those places,” Mark Mundo said. “It was his way to give back a little bit.”

In addition to his son, Joe Mundo is survived by two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Mark Mundo expects there will be a celebration of life for his father later this year in Waikiki.

“My mother was scattered off the coast of Waikiki when she passed in 2014,” Mundo said. “He said that he wanted to have the same treatment.”