| Joanie Collins Is an accomplished instrumentalist and vocalist, and has been the innovative force behind MANGO since 1998, incorporating a touch of classical music and jazz standards to Mango’s repetoire, and highlighting Carl Ray’s inimitable talent on the ukulele in new and unique settings. She has been playing the violin and piano since she was very young, and the music she plays is as diverse as her talents. Joanie plays the keyboards, bass, electric and acoustic violin, and sings in MANGO. Joanie has performed as concert mistress with the Mau’i Symphony Orchestra and the Big Island’s premier string trio, the Magic Strings, as well as on her sizzling white five string electric violin all over the Hawai’ian islands. She has performed with many music groups such as Island Rhapsody, Hawai`ians Unlimited, Espresso and the Dream Sisters, and the Kona Chamber Orchestra on the Big Island, Kaua`i, Lana`i’s Manele Bay Hotel, and Mau`i,. She has had the privilege of backing up such great entertainers as Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Kekuhi Kanahele, Keali’i Reichel, and Eugene Fodor. In January 1995 she founded the Performing Arts and Cultural Exchange Studios (PACES) in Kealakekua, where she was the artistic director for five years. After forming a “Nahenahe Mele” trio with Natie Adarme and Ulu Visser in 1996, she and Natie went on to create an all-woman rock and roll group with three other women – “Tzunami!” rocked the Big Island. Joanie is currently researching the role that the violin played in Hawai`ian music before the introduction of the steel guitar and electricity. Charles E. King and Sam Lia are two prolific Hawai`ian songwriters who featured the violin prominently in their music., and until the 1930’s, the violin was the lead instrument in Hawai`ian music. |
| Carl Ray Villaverde Is the heart and soul and originator of MANGO. He is a lead vocalist, guitarist, and one of Hawai’i’s finest ukulele players. He also plays slack key guitar, bass and drums, and was taught to play Hawai’ian steel guitar by world renowned Jerry Byrd. He is an instructor for the Master’s program in the “lost arts” of the Hawai’ian musical culture, and teaches ukulele and guitar at SBCC. Carl Ray’s talent has allowed him to travel and share his gift of music on the mainland U.S. as well as Japan throughout his thirty-year professional music career. A Na Hoku Hanohano Award nominee, Carl Ray won first place each year as a child for his ukulele playing in the Merrie Monarch Festival. He is a gifted arranger and composer, and has engineered MANGO’s recordings, as well. Since 1972 Carl Ray has been performing in Hawai`i’s finest resorts, beginning at the age of 18 at the Nani Loa Hotel as a drummer for Al Lopaka. From 1979 – 1987, he lived on Maui and played as the house band at the Kapalua Bay Hotel, and shared the stage with Cecilio, of “C & K”, at the Sheraton’s Discovery Room. Carl Ray and his brother Thomas played the Petroglyph Bar at the Royal Waikoloan Hotel, on the Big Island’s Kohala Coast from 1989 – 1996. In 1998, Carl Ray teamed up with Joanie Collins Dunne to create an all new sound for MANGO, playing at festivals and resorts on the Big Island of Hawai`i, Mau`i, and Kaua`i. They were the Pahu`ia Restaurant’s house band at the Four Seasons Hualalai, from January 1999 to the end of 2001, after which they were invited to play in Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah during the Winter Olympics 2002. Since relocating to Santa Barbara, they have been bringing a slice of Aloha to Californians, beginning at the Four Seasons Biltmore, and for the past three years at the Beachside Café’, presenting a Hawaiian show in the lounge right by the surf, near UCSB. |
