Eddie Lund and His Tahitian Orchestra

Artist: Eddie Lund and His Tahitian Orchestra

LP: Eddie Lund Presents Tahiti Dances

Song: "Vahine Anamite"

[ listen ]

Song: "Ute"

[ listen ]

Song: "Tangi Tika"

[ listen ]

I love finding old recordings of music from Tahiti! I mean, where else are you going to hear the eerie obligato of the nose flute? This one (and perhaps all recorded music coming out of Tahiti in the early 1960s) was produced by Eddie Lund of Vancouver, Washington (why, that's just down the street!) and features actual Tahitian singers and musicians performing in their natural habitat. 

You see, Lund went to Tahiti in 1936, learned the local spoken and musical languages, showed everybody what a microphone was for, and the rest, as they say, is history. My guess is that Eddie probably also introduced the Tahitians to Elvis Presley, and then the beautiful music of the islands was gone forever.

[ Eddie Lund: October 12, 1909 — December 4, 1973 ]