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Martin Denny was born on April 10, 1911, in New York. He toured extensively with big bands in the 1930s and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. In the mid-1950s, he found himself in Hawaii, where he performed at the Hawaiian Village Hotel in Waikiki with his quartet, which included a vibraphonist. They played soft arrangements of popular songs using unique instruments from Hawaii and the South Pacific, such as conch shells, gongs, and kotos, creating a distinctive musical style known as Exotica. Denny's single "Quiet Village," released in 1958, reached the Top 5 on the Billboard pop charts. His first album, "Exotica," featuring a sultry model on the cover, topped the charts for five weeks in 1959. He continued to release albums with titles like "Forbidden Island," "Afro-Desia," and "Primitiva," which became the soundtrack for the stylized Polynesian trend of the early Cold War era, characterized by tiki cups, Hawaiian shirts, and bikinis. Denny passed away on March 5, 2005, at his home in Hawaii Kai, near Honolulu, at the age of 93. In 1990, he received a Nā Hōkū Hanohano Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts.

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