Rudi Wairata and The Mena Moeria Minstrels.

You probably haven't heard of them. And to tell you the truth, neither had I until a few years ago when I got a collection of 78's from a friend in Europe.

It seems The Mena Moeria Minstrels were a combination Dutch Indonesian and Hawaiian and were pretty big in Europe, apart from their popularity on the Islands, and these discs were put out by a Dutch company Omega Records in 1953.

Aside from the historic aspect, I was hooked on this track "Maui Moon" after the first few bars.

The 1950's were loaded with a lot of interesting (and some downright strange) music, aside from the flood of rock n' roll and R&B. Not a whole lot of it has been explored and some of it has been unjustifiably neglected.

This might be one of them.