Born To Sing
Traci Toguchi, having seen the highs and lows of New York and Los Angeles, is back home with her big dreams still intact. As she sings, ‘you have to live through your fears’
By Lisa Asato
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS | Share
Del.icio.us
Petite at barely 5 feet tall, Toguchi has a big, soulful
voice
lars in L.A. when I tried to put my own recording together,” she says. “This guy told me I should do my own album, but then I had to give him money up front to pay to hold the studio time, like cash ... And to this day I have nothing to show for it. No demo or anything. And the thing is he said he discovered Brandy. He told all these stories of her coming into the studio so it seemed really real, and I was watching Behind the Music. That wasn’t him.”
But she also tasted sweet success. Like winning Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in New York City on her first time out, and landing a spot on the Broadway tour of Miss Saigon when she was 25.
“It was an unreal life,” she says of her year on the tour. “A lot of money - you make actually double what the Broadway cast makes because you have per diem ... We only worked for two hours and 40 minutes six days a week, so I had all the other time to do what I wanted. So I decided if I just write at least one song a day at least I’ll be doing something to help the other part of my career. Sometimes I’d write three songs a day.” Which accounts for her file of some 300 self-penned songs.
Toguchi comes from a musical family. Her mother, to whom the CD is dedicated, started Toguchi and her sister Lee Ann in Japanese singing lessons when they were 5 and 7, respectively. Classical voice lessons followed for Toguchi two years later. Her grandfather played jazz guitar, and when the three generations lived under one roof, Toguchi recalls coming home from school and “he’d be playing his guitar, just improvising to a Frank Sinatra album.”
Toguchi previously toured
with ‘Miss Saigon’
The family owned Bea’s Pies on 12th Avenue, and Toguchi would walk there after she did well in a karaoke contest, broadcast over the radio, seeking her grandfather’s feedback.
She also recalls a time when she didn’t do so well. She asked him, “Did you hear it?” He answered, “Wasn’t too good.”
“He couldn’t lie,” Toguchi says. “I really respect that ... He had a very nurturing quality about him without having to say a lot of words. He had a great sense of humor. And humble, and he’s such a hard worker. So I think in a lot of ways I try to emulate him.”
Toguchi’s life experiences are as colorful as her songs are soulful. They range from coat check girl at a Cuban restaurant in New York, where she says actor Billy Baldwin was a good tipper; to actress in Karate Kid II when she was 12 (she still gets royalty checks for saying two lines); to receptionist at New York’s legendary Hit Factory recording studio (think Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, etc.); to state winner of the Brown Bags to Stardom her junior year at Kaiser High School; and restaurant hostess at a hotel frequented by VIPs in Los Angeles, Ricky Martin among them. “After he left, I sat in his chair,” she confesses.
Unable to fulfill her recording dreams on the Mainland, Toguchi returned to Hawaii in 2001 to make her album. There were at least two planned releases, but something was always lacking: funds, or a product that was less than perfect to the singer. But this time everything feels right.
“When the idea of a MidWeek cover story first came up, a couple weeks before that everything was just falling into place,” says Toguchi.
“Every time it’s always been about me pushing the wheel. Pushing, rolling the ball, and now things are just happening - boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and it’s very easy. So I feel that it’s finally the right time.
“It’s a little scary, but it’s been ready for awhile. But as I say in my song (What Would You Do), you have to live through your fears.”
Toguchi will be performing at 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Waikiki Spam Jam, on the Island Rhythm 98.5 stage fronting the Outrigger Waikiki.
Page 2 of 2 pages for this story < 1 2
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
