Tommy Castro Photo

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

This photo appears on the back of Lorene Ruymar's Hawaiian Guitar Book. I am pretty good at facial recognition, comparing hair line, ear shape etc. I've long held the view that the young man is Tommy Castro. There are two other photos in the book that appear to be from Duke Akina's Hawaiian Four. Verification of the line up remains elusive. However, the same lad appears on bass in an early photo with Harry Owens on p41 of Sweet Leilani, the HO autobiography. I have just discovered pretty-well conclusive proof on p68 of the Lena Machado book where the young Tommy is seated with a steel guitar. It has to be the same person.

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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

David:

Just went over your 2014 thread about this photo and remain unsure.

Lips aside, I'd say quite probably Tommy. But the lips---can't say for sure. Ear lobes? Pic below circa 1950?? Maybe 15 years after your pic.

Here's a couple more pix for you to muse over.

Can you ID anyone?

Is that Sam Koki on the truck, second from left? That pic from 1949.

Color pic maybe a few years later. That's probably a DC-3 tail section. Not sure when they would have disappeared from inter-island service.

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

The two photos most comparable are the bass player with Harry Owens and the steel guitar player in the Machado book, who is IDd as Tommy Castro. If they are not the same person, they'd have to be brothers. Tommy was born in 1912 and the Ruymar photo looks to be 1928-30 by the guitars and the sash.
_________________
Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

JB Bobbitt · From: California, USA

I bet there is an app for that
_________________
"Time is an enemy"
-Bob Dylan

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Here's a late one of Sam Koki. It seems his eyebrows got bushier as he aged. The shot on the truck looks to be contemporary with the Paradise Isle Soundie. Sorry . . . I keep getting distracted by the babes . . . but the truck guy does look like Sam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfwrqgezcYo

_________________
Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Scott Thomas · Posted 9 Sep 2020 5:22 pm

Just identifying the Hawaiian band in Lorene's book is quite a coup I would say. Do you have a date on Duke Akina's Hawaiian Four? It looks mid-'20s. According to the bio in Lorene's book, Tommy Castro was born in 1912. That could possible make your subject (whom Lorene dubbed "baby face") too old (young as he looks). I personally see only the most superficial resemblance to known pictures of Tommy Castro. Even allowing for ageing. I agree that at least the full lips and cheeky "moon face" are disqualifying.

Also on page 200 of the same book he is playing ukulele in the band. Even though many of these talented musicians were multi-instrumental, it is odd to me that if it were Tommy Castro, he would be playing uke (and bass with Alvin Issacs, if your other theory were correct).

Speaking of that last point, the actual photo of Castro with Ray Kinney looks later than the one with the bass player you purport to be TC with with Alvin Isaacs. According to the bio in Lorene's book, TC first played with Ray Kinney, and joined a different lineup of Alvin Isaac's Royal Hawaiian Serenaders after that.

I understand Lorene's book is not gospel and there are no doubt some omissions and mistakes (possibly no fault of her own), so it may be less than definitive. Still, if Castro played with Harry Owens, or in an earlier iteration of the Alvin Isaacs band, that would be glaring indeed.

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Hi Scott. Like Hawaiian musicians today, Castro played other instruments. Real name, Thomas Koani.
Duke Akina's Hawaiian Four appear in a photo on p19 of Centerbrook's Aloha Collection. The young man in question is not in the photo, but they seem to have all the National instruments from the his studio portrait and the group photo on p200 Ruymar book. My guess is Akina owned the instruments. These photos have a decidedly late 20s early 30s atmosphere, when Tommy was between 18 and 22. Totally believable for that young countenance.(edit. the photo in the Aloha Collection is from the 1930 National Catalog. Perhaps Akina was plugging Nationals)

Secondly, the Machado book identifies a young man as Tommy Castro. It accompanies a discussion of the copyright process of a song in 1934 which Tommy helped score.

Thirdly, Owens took over the Royal Hawaiian Orchestra in 1933-4. The photo included in the autobiography accompanies that account. The photo is clearly early 30s, and the bass player appears to be the same young man as in the Machado book. We know these guys played all over town in what ever combinations paid.

The above is good enough for me, however I would say the somewhat grizzled appearance of TC in later years should have little influence on ID. I am not nearly as pretty as I was 30 years ago.

Tommy playing standard guitar:

_________________
Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Scott Thomas · Posted 9 Sep 2020 10:48 pm

The studio photo strikes me as the kind of promotional shot used to publicize those traveling Hawaiian musical reviews or troupes popular on the vaudeville circuit during the period in question (late '20s/early '30s).

The photos look like they are signed "Jackson Studio Seattle"(?)Since these ended up in the collection of the Experience Music Project Seattle, I wondered if there was a location connection. I looked and there was a Jackson Photo Studio which operated in Seattle at that time.

The Pacific Northwest was a hub for Pacific Islander migration. I suspect this band may have come to the U.S. to exploit the growing market for Hawaiian entertainers.

If I'm right, I think this disqualifies "baby face" as being a young Tommy Castro.

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

How does Seattle disqualify him?
_________________
Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Scott Thomas · Posted 10 Sep 2020 8:12 pm

I believe it disqualifies him because I haven't been able to find a biography of Tommy Castro which puts him on the mainland c. 1930 when that Seattle photo was likely taken. As it turns out, I do have that Duke Akina group photo from the 1930 National catalog reprinted in a book. I never noticed it before. Good catch noticing the same instruments! The caption reads they are "now en route on world tour". That would be an impressive professional credential not to have been mentioned in the bio of Tommy Castro!

Bill Wynne has written extensively on Hawaiian music and musicians on his blog. His work on Tommy Castro is as exhaustive as I have found. He puts 1934 as the year of one of his earliest professional engagements. (With Alvin Isaacs' K.M.M. Syncopators). From '36-'37 he played with G.G. Royce Orchestra in Honolulu, and from '38-'41 he was with Ray Kinney at the Lexington Hotel, NYC. This chronology doesn't leave much time for him to also have played bass for Harry Owens along side Alvin Isaacs who was with Owens from '35-'40. I've seen no reference to TC ever playing with Harry Owens (which would have been a high profile gig, and surely mentioned!)

Not sure what you mean in reference to Lena Machado. I see that Tommy Castro did arrangements for some Lena Machado recordings in 1947.

What I'm trying to do is triangulate the chronology of what is known about Tommy's career with dates and locations of your mystery men. I think this is a better approach since we will not agree on facial recognition.

https://hwnmusiclives.libsyn.com/hawaiian-room-tommy-castro-with-ray-kinney

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

An inability to find a reference is hardly grounds for disqualification. I don't like to repeat myself,but the Machado reference is to p68 of her biography. The photo IDs Tommy. If that is not also the same person in the Owens photo, then there were a pair of look-alikes in the Honolulu music scene of 1934. Have you actually compared these two photographs? If so, how else would you explain them?
_________________
Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

For what it's worth:

The earliest credit to Tommy Castro in Rockwellâ€™s 1400 page Hawaiian discography is from 1937 in Honolulu with The Hapa-Haoles on Aloha Ia No O Maui "Maui Hula" on which a â€œCastroâ€ is given label credit. Unconfirmed if this is Tommy.

The next is with Ray Kinney and His Royal Hawaiians from April 1938 in Los Angeles on Ulili E, Manuela Boy, A Song Of Old Hawaii, and Aloha Ia No O Maui.

In a scan, I didn't see any Castro pre-1945 recordings other than with The Hapa-Haoles, Kinney and "possibly" with Ray Andrade (in 1941).

Scott Thomas · Posted 10 Sep 2020 10:45 pm

David, I found the other thread you did on this. Just to streamline this a bit, I believe these are the three photos you refer to in your first post.

Lena Machado Bio, steel guitarist seated center credited as Tommy Castro. Would be interested in a date and any other information regarding this group.

Unidentified Ukulele player. Duke Akina's Hawaiian Four c. 1930

Unidentified Bassist Harry Owens Royal Hawaiian Orchestra c.1935-1940

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