The Out-Islanders

A project by Billy May and Charlie Barnet. May teamed up with Barnet around 1962 for an anonymous album of Hawaiian and tropical music. His lifestyle had finally slowed him down in the mid 1960s. He had a heart bypass operation in 1963, and ended a twenty-five year smoking habit. After a particularly hard night at Barnet's 51st birthday party, he stopped drinking completely. "Charlie and I planned it on a vacation in Hawaii," he later wrote. "We called ourselves the "The Kon-Tikis." [Get it? Con-Tikis]. Actually, the group was called the Out-Islanders, and the album Polynesian Fantasy. May arranged and conducted while Barnet played, along with such session stars as Jimmy Rowles, Ted Nash on sax, Al Hendrickson on guitar, Irv Cottler on drums, and Marni Nixon and Loulie Jean Norman on wordless vocals. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.