Asta ki…Pilung

The place was the Hyatt Regency Saipan, and the occasion was the 20th anniversary of the ordination of the late Bishop Tomas Camacho. I forgot what was on the menu, or how many people bought a ticket to attend that event, but the thing that sticks in my mind about that whole night was the highlight performance. It was a reunion of two icons in local music, who through their songs helped inspire countless artists after them to express the creativity through music.

The danderus that night were the surviving members of the seminal band, “Chamolinian”— the late Frank “Bokonggo” Pangelinan and the recently departed Candy Taman. For the manåmko in attendance, the songs they sang brought them back to a time where life was simple, laidback, and peaceful. For us manhoben watching these two legends perform, it was an experience like no other that you had to be there in person to fully appreciate, since this was a time when camera phones were a relatively new thing in the islands. And since Candy’s passing a month ago, it’s times like these that have made me reflect on the experiences I look fondly of with Candy and the impact in general he had on our music, our islands, and Micronesia and the Pacific.

I remember the first time I met Candy Taman; it was 1992, and I was a 9-year-old in Hawaii on medical referral. I was a patient for the Shriners Clinic in Honolulu, and I just finished having my arm surgically repaired and in physical rehab after my last surgery. I was just biding time with my dad at the hotel, who was my escort, for my last batch of appointments and the clean bill of health to come back home. At the time I was a naughty kid in a place that was still pretty new to me.

And I was running around the lobby of the floor we were staying on, I almost collided with this gentleman wearing sunglasses with a big smile on his face waiting for the elevator to take him to the ground level. I didn’t know who he was until I think the next night or a few nights after that, when I saw my dad with him. They were drinking, with the other guys from back home that were staying in the hotel or on Oahu for business. And I was asking my dad, “Who is that?”

And he was telling me, “That’s Candy Taman,” and I honestly didn’t know who he was. He was already an established musician at the time, but the 9-year-old me wasn’t really versed in local music. I was an MTV kid back then, but because he was a “music star” according to my dad, he piqued my interest. During that same trip, I found out as well that he and I were cousins.

He was in Hawaii to record his latest album, and invited my father to his suite to listen to a song that he just finished recording, Patron Marianas Pt. 2, which included a verse memorializing a relative of his. The thing that I remember my dad saying was when Candy made him listen to that song and he heard the name of Tun Luis Korason, it gave him goosebumps. We can all truly say that that was one of those things that endeared Candy to a whole lot of people. It was not just the fact that he was a longtime entertainer and a consummate showman, but he just had a way with words…and people.

When it came to writing songs, he was from that generation that knew how to mix modernization at the time with old school customs and ideals, and it came out in a lot in the songs Candy wrote. A lot of them dealt with life on the islands as he saw it. He was born three years after the war, Jan. 9, 1948, to be exact. As a matter of fact, the same Commonwealth he would talk about on many of the songs he wrote, co-wrote, recorded as a solo artist or as a member of bands like CHamolinian and the equally legendary Tropicsette, was established the day he turned 30, and he was also sworn into Congress on his 58th birthday (just a fun fact for all of you).

He grew up in a period of our history where there were fair shares of struggles to go around. He grew up just like many of our grandparents and great-grandparents did, in a Northern Marianas that held dealing with a quickly evolving modern world. It was those moments seen through his eyes that was the catalyst of many of the songs he wrote and performed. He and his fellow artists wrote quite a few songs about maintaining the ways of the past while keeping an eye on the future. A classic example of that is one of his most timeless tunes, American Påo Asu, from his first album “Ai Familiåkko.” Where although the melody is catchy and the song makes you want to get up and cha-cha, the lyrics are a call to all of us to never forget our roots and culture when we pick up the latest fads and trends. Like any usual island boy, Candy and his friends sang songs about their love of homeland, Saipan, or as one early hit of his calls it, i Islan CHamolinian. He sung about being respectful to your elders, urging us to deal with things life takes us with humility and amicably. Candy also wrote songs that some could say had double meaning, some raunchy, some practical, many emotional.

A song I think that falls into this distinction is the song from the eponymous album, “Galaide sin Låyak,” written about a friend of his who had his heart broken by someone he had deep feelings for, and in turn the pain made him feel lost and depressed. Although it being a love song, the title in itself can relate to anything that happens in our lives that leaves us hurt, stressed, depressed, or with a feeling of uncertainty. In times like those, we can all say we were like “a canoe without a sail,” drifting in the water, unsure of where we will go from there. In these years of enduring typhoons and a pandemic, all of us can say we’ve felt that here and there. He wrote songs that were in fact stories in themselves. Many of us remember the composition Mt. Pagan from the “Ingråto” album by CHamolinian.

Despite its length, Candy’s distinct sound and the emotion he projects bring you back to that fateful day in ’81 when residents of Pagan witnessed their island rumble and roar, causing them to evacuate their homes to save themselves and their loved ones. Candy’s wife, Mary Ellen, told us that everything he sang was based off true stories told to him by those who lived through it. He sang of honoring those whose lives helped in shaping our history, such as the many iterations of the song Patron Marianas, where he honors not just our political leaders, he honors educators, traditional leaders and legendary figures, all in educating us about our origins as a people.

Going back to that night in 2005, Candy told us the story behind the song Hubispo Camacho, from the “Legend of Taga” album, in which he shared he wrote it after finding out about the bishop’s appointment from the Vatican while at an evening recording session with Bokonggo. The news brought so much happiness to him that they immediately went to penning, composing, and recording the tribute to the new spiritual leader. And though Candy could sing in both CHamorro and Carolinian, Candy’s love of Micronesia and the Pacific was evident in songs he sang in the languages of our island neighbors.

Hits such as Yigo Akasasa, Nih Eih Anane Luk (Menlau), Pitiniau En Weremwen, and songs sung with frequent collaborator Halley Erich from Palau brought the crowd to the floor to dance the night away from Garapan to Koror, Wenio, Kolonia, and even Ebeye. So many songs, so many albums, many of them part of the theoretical Great Micronesian Songbook. It’s things like these that made Candy a legend throughout this blue continent.

A good example of that was 20 years ago, when he and I represented the CNMI at the 9th Festival of Pacific Arts in Palau, the first time FESTPAC was held in Micronesia. Wherever we went whether it’d be Koror, Ngeremlengui, Babeldaob, the Rock Islands, and Candy was with us, admiration and respect was shown to him by everyone he interacted with. He was a rock star, elder statesman, tribal chief wrapped up into one, the way people cheered for him and acknowledged him.

There were quite a few things I learned about the intricacies of Pacific culture on that trip with Candy. It was on an excursion to the Rock Islands where he taught me the proper way to eat a tataga, among other things. One thing I look fondly back on that time was an evening show we did at Asahi Stadium, where during a performance of Hågu I Inan I Langet, he and I hit the high note in the chorus and held that note for so long the girls dancing with the flaming coconut shells in their hands were giving us the look that they were being burned by the heat of the sterno cans in their haiguas.
Candy even made leaving Palau memorable. We had chartered a place to take us straight to Saipan in the red-eye hours. By chance, Candy and I were sitting in the same row, next to each other. Long story short, I found out both he and I get pretty anxious while on flights. So, in order to pacify him being uneasy on the plane and being unable to sleep, I gave him the albums of pictures I took to pass the time. By the end of the flight, there were a handful of pictures missing from those albums. Not surprisingly they were all photos of him, and people he posed for photos with that were dear to him.

Since then, Candy and I ran into each other off and on, always with a handshake and at times, a hug. Whenever I would coach the Marianas High School students at the UOG Chamorro Language Competition each Mes CHamorro, I would make it a point to introduce him to the kids whenever he was called to judge. And the last time he and I met each other was appropriately at a show, the Guam Micronesia Island Fair in 2014. Despite his body’s limitations, his mind, wit, humor and charisma were sharp as ever as he had everyone dancing to his oldies…but goodies.

As much as we knew that he was dealing with health issues and they were major ones, when the news hit last June of his death, it’s safe to say it hit a lot of us hard. For me, aside from the fact that it was a while since I last saw him, it was profound because of what I guess, he meant to many who look at him as a reason of why we love local music. It’s been 15 years and 20 years respectively since Bokonggo and Quirino Aquino (members of CHamolinian) left us, five years since the death of the “Colonel,” years coming and going with various members of Tropicsette leaving us and almost a decade since the last surviving member of Rematau, Dave Peter, passed away, so prior to dying Candy was one of our last living links to the golden age of our musical lineages.

Although we have had so many great artists in the last few decades who have taken the task of continuing on our rich musical legacy, Candy was one of a few who prided themselves on releasing original music as opposed to just recording and performing covers. But to be fair…a few of his classics did borrow tunes from more recognized songs or were translated covers. It can be safe to say, it would be hard to find a songwriter and entertainer who can stand on the same level as Candy Taman did back in the day.

Sad as it may be, many musicians whose music makes us bob our heads or move our feet take comfort knowing that Candy lived long enough to see them carry on what he and his contemporaries helped to establish. A few of them even get the chance to share the stage with him on a few occasions. Many of them in their own unique ways, found a way to tell him, “Thank you,” for the inspiration he gave.
For us the fans, we find solace knowing the music will keep Candy alive in our minds. Every time one of us streams his songs on YouTube or Soundcloud. When we listen to his music on our phones, tablets, or computers. Or even when we pop in a CD into a boombox, or maseha rewind a cassette or drop a needle on one of his albums in vinyl, the legacy of his work will continue to make us reminisce, recollect, and remember this icon, trailblazer, pioneer, artist and ambassador of our music and our culture.

And for a few of us, we have the memories to remember by as well. His humor, wit, generosity, and charisma will be things all us blessed to have known to him will continue to hold close. Just like the late Israel Kamakawiwo`ole famously sang that we’d never find another Hawaiian like him, it will be a sure thing we may possibly never find another CHamolinian like Candy Taman. Pues deskånsa gi Pas primu. Si yu’us ma’åse yan ghilisou for the music and especially…for the memories.

Asta ki “Pilung.”

Luis John “L.J.” DLG. Castro is a former lawmaker who is currently the secretary/coordinator of the 19th CNMI Youth Congress .