Description from Back Cover

Track Titles:

1. I'm in the Mood For Love
2. I Only Have Eyes For You
3. Prisoner of Love
4. Hawaiian Wedding Song (Ke Kali Nei Au)
5. Once in a While
6. All of Me
7. Embraceable You
8. Blue Hawaii
9. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
10. It Had to Be You
11. Hawaiian Paradise
12. Stardust
    Bonus Tracks: From a Session in the 40's
13. How High the Moon/Blue Moon
14. Too Young
15. That's For Me
16. Till the End of Time

Liner Notes

Till the End of Time
Larry Ching, a singular singer

At Forbidden City, which featured mostly Chinese entertainers, Larry was billed as "the Chinese Sinatra." But that was showbiz hokum. Larry's sweet and lilting voice is singular, in more ways than one. That voice-and his legacy as a pioneer entertainer, along with his fellow performers at Forbidden City-is what led me to persuade him to record this disk of favorite standards.

He didn't need much persuasion. Once a crooner, always a crooner, and Larry, who was born and raised in Hawaii, has been singing since he was a child. He was a merchant marine in the late Thirties and would disembark in San Francisco between jobs. He visited Chinatown taverns and broke out in the occasional song. In 1938, a restaurant, the Chinese Village, hired him. "I became the first singing bartender in Chinatown," he says. The bar's co-owner, Charlie Low, then opened Forbidden City, with a floor show of singers, dancer, acrobats and magicians. In 1942, Low hired Larry to become his featured vocalist. Larry wasn't sure. "I had never had any singing lessons," he said. "I can't read music. I would buy a record and take it home and play it until I learned it." Larry flourished at Forbidden City [and other clubs, too] and after it closed in 1961, he left show business. Through the years, though, he has continued to sing, at weddings, community events, and occasional reunions of Forbidden City alumni.

I met him at the world premiere of Arthur Dong's eye and ear-opening documentary Forbidden City, U.S.A., in San Francisco in 1989, and have been waiting for this CD ever since. The fact that I had to produce it myself is nothing less than an honor. We've included a few cuts from his only other recording, from…who knows when. Vintage vinyl or state-of-the-art digital, Larry sounds wonderful. And that's no showbiz hokum.

- Ben Fong-Torres