Lost in The Clouds

The tall, cinnamon-skinned girl has a voice like velvet--soft, rich and shimmering under the smoke-dimmed lights. Her throaty tunes are chosen with care, treated with respect. Her act, when the noisy audience stops to listen, is swinging singing at its best. But these days Ann Weldon, who once knocked around the edges of the big time, often seems to be singing to herself. She is lost in The Clouds, a Honolulu nightclub on Kapahulu Avenue no better and no worse than a dozen other joints competing for the tourist's dollar or the serviceman's paycheck.

No one runs up a tab at The Clouds; drinks are bought when served. There is a strapping Negro chef named Peewee, who can build a sandwich or a pizza if anyone really wants to eat. And there is always a bouncer-headwaiter at the door to see that the servicemen, who make up at least half the clientele, are legally old enough to get oiled enough to make noise enough to drown out a singer who deserves a silent room. For all that, in the constricted world of Hawaiian night life, Ann Weldon's talent rides over the racket with unexpected authority.

Irish Mist. Honolulu hotspots run from the honky-tonks of Hotel Street to the posh tourist traps at Waikiki, but measured by the quality of the entertainment, they all amble along at their old, pre-statehood pace. The Japanese businessman at the Ginza Club sees the same show that titillates the sailors at Bill Pacheco's Oasis. The strippers could never make the big-time spots, but they sport the manufactured Stateside names that are the hallmark of their trade--Irish Mist, Martini Martin, etc. They are small competition for the low-paid song-and-dance girls imported from Japan who belt out rock 'n' roll just as if they understood the words. At the big beach hotels, where the price of a planter's punch increases with the size of the orchestra, the music is a little smoother, but it is still stubbornly repetitious. Every stage show has its hula dancers and its steel guitar.

Almost everywhere the noise ends at midnight, when the tourists turn in to rest for tomorrow's sun. Only the hep types hold out--and they end up at The Clouds, listening to Ann. They get what they want in the clear, confident phrasing, in the old Tin Pan Alley favorites (Ten Cents a Dance, What's New, It All Depends on You) remembered with new enthusiasm.

Or Else. Even when she was a 200-Ib. schoolgirl in Bakersfield, Calif., singing in assemblies, Ann had a voice that could sell a song. Eventually she was so good that she was barred from "open'' competitions. At 19 she quit school, went to Sacramento and got an $80-a-week job at a small watering place called the Mo-Mo Club. After that came places such as Elko, Nev. and Eureka. Kans. As she slimmed down to her present 145 Ibs., Ann began to get dates in Las Vegas and Hollywood, but she did not hit it big. She refused to sing rock 'n' roll ("The money isn't that important''); her best records (Like Nothin', 01' Man River) got raves from the trade papers but they did not move in the market. When her father died she went back to the West Coast --which turned out to be a halfway point on the way to Hawaii, and The Clouds.

As she sails into her silky version of What's New or / Loves You, Porgy, sometimes the customers even tell each other to shut up, or else--which is as close to owning an audience as an entertainer can come. And it proves that Ann Weldon, 26, who has been around for a while already, may still be heading for the big time.

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