Talk:Harry Owens

Edit summary, ideas for Discography and Legacy

This is a good biography. Changes were strictly stylistic rather than factual, except for the addition of two more external links. Mentioned "Sweet Leilani" in opening sentence, putting this and other song titles in "quotations" rather than italics. Linked steel guitar. Moved the link to Royal Hawaiian Hotel and the phrase "in Waikiki" from section 1.3 to section 1.2, where the hotel is first mentioned; and further shortened the affected sentence in section 1.3. Moved the sentence about the 1940s radio show to section 1.4, which has been retitled accordingly; and made various refinements of sentence structure at several points.

Update: Moved the sentence about the radio show back to section 1.2 and modified it because the article Hawaii Calls says Owens was featured beginning in 1935.

Apparently, no adequate Discography exists for Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiian Orchestra. (I added an external link to the best one I could find; the existing link to Discogs only lists one single of "Cocoanut Grove.") I am therefore in the process of compiling a Harry Owens discography myself, using record label discographies as sources.

Oddly enough, I became interested in Harry Owens by way of country music. What do they have in common? Steel guitar. I'm thinking of adding a section at the end of the article titled In country music, which should perhaps be a subsection of a larger section titled Legacy. For example, the album Hittin' the Road by Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours includes an instrumental version of Owens' "Cocoanut Grove" (links to allmusic page with music sample). Please post any thoughts or suggestions here. Preservationist957 (talk) 23:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Update: Will cover part of Owens' legacy by expanding the article "Sweet Leilani" to include subsequent recordings. Preservationist957 (talk) 14:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Image, Movies, Albums, etc.

Have made additions to "Sweet Leilani," now back to this article:

Infobox: Located and uploaded a picture of Harry Owens with his daughter Leilani that I believe qualifies as "fair use."

Movies: Added sentence about Song of the Islands. (Article already has an external link to Internet Movie Database.) There is still scope for further expansion of this paragraph.

Discography: Added Albums with references. Believe this is the most comprehensive list of Harry Owens albums that can currently be found online, but not so lengthy as to require a Wikitable. Did not use Discogs as a reference because they appear to be mistaken about certain details, but I might be mistaken about which source is mistaken. (Changed the external link to Discogs so that it links to a page with albums rather than an undated single of "Cocoanut Grove." A good hypothesis is that the single was released contemporaneously with the film in 1938.) Intend to add Singles at a later date.

Further reading: Owens published an autobiography. Don't believe books that old had ISBNs, but Amazon lists used copies. Preservationist957 (talk) 13:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)