Bill Tapia can tell you about the curse of a long life, but you won't believe his ending.

At 100, the 'ukulele virtuoso has outlived his siblings. His wife of 64 years. His only child. Everyone who knew him when he played jazz guitar with Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnett and Fats Waller. His original fans, friends from his boyhood days in Honolulu — all are long gone.

Not Tapia. He's living large, a cherished relic with a memory — and a wit — that's as sharp as a barbershop razor.

And that's not the best part.

Tapia, who lives in Westminster, Calif., is still a touring musician. He'll take center stage at 7 p.m. Saturday at Diamond Head Theatre, cradle his 'ukulele and redefine your accepted notions of growing old.

At an age when most people can't stand, Tapia is getting standing ovations from audiences who weren't even born when he got his first Social Security check.

"I don't know how I am living this long," he said. "God must love me."

Or maybe it's the 'ukulele. Because in Tapia's hands, it comes alive. It's a four-stringed fountain of youth. Tapia plays like a young man.

"I don't know what I would do without playing that damn 'ukulele," he said. "The main thing I want to do is play until I am gone. I don't want to stop."

QUICK LEARNER

Tapia is a portal to a Hawai'i that exists largely in history books.

When he was born, in a house just across from what is now The Queen's Medical Center, Honolulu didn't have paved roads or streetlights.

Tapia heard his first 'ukulele when he was 7. A group of old Hawaiians would strum and sing at a neighbor's house, so one night, Tapia snuck outside to watch. He learned two chords that night when one of the players put down his 'ukulele during a break.

Smitten by its sound and size, Tapia bought an 'ukulele the next day for 75 cents from Manuel Nunes, one of the first 'ukulele makers in Hawai'i.

The young boy proved a natural talent.

"All I had in my life was two lessons and I picked up everything," he said. "I don't say I am the best player, but that is what everybody tells me."

By age 10, Tapia was performing for U.S. troops at local YMCAs, sometimes playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" behind his head for larger tips.

At 12, he dropped out of school to play in vaudeville shows in Honolulu as an employee of the Hawaiian Amusement Company. A driver had to take Tapia from show to show. During the day, he hung out with beachboys in Waikiki and taught tourists and celebrities to play the 'uke.

"I was the first 'ukulele player who played jazz on the 'ukulele," he said. "Most everyone played Hawaiian-style music. You only have two or three chords. I did something different. I was very popular."

Tapia's memories of this time are bittersweet. The youngest of five children, he had to help support his mother after his father, a barber, left the family. He wouldn't get to bed until 2 a.m.

"As a kid, I had a hard life," he said. "I worked in the worst places in the world and I worked in the best places in the world."

But Tapia wanted to play with the big dance bands of the era and at 15, shelved his 'ukulele for guitars and banjos. He built a career playing jazz guitar, mostly on steamships traveling between the West Coast and Hawai'i, and had his own group, Tappy's Island Swingers.

In 1946, he settled in San Francisco to raise his family and give guitar and 'ukulele lessons full time.

"I was very popular when I was young," he said. "Then I gave it up and came to the Mainland for more than 60 years and everybody forgot about me."

For the next 55 years, Tapia rarely played the 'ukulele and if he did, it was at home for his wife, Barbie, or his daughter, Cleo.

MUSICAL CAREER REBORN

Tragedy and an unlikely friendship changed that.

Cancer claimed Cleo in 1998 and then Barbie in 2001. Their deaths left Tapia adrift, depressed.

"They were two people I really, really loved," he said. "I would do anything for them. I didn't know what to do. Good thing I had the 'ukulele and I picked it up again."

In the waning months of Barbie's life, Tapia met Alyssa Archambault, a young concert producer from Los Angeles with Hawai'i roots — her great-grandparents were Hawaiian entertainers.

She met him at his home in July 2001, which was now in Southern California. He was still teaching music and occasionally playing guitar and 'ukulele with local seniors.

"We instantly became friends," she said.

As Archambault got to know Tapia, he shared how he missed performing on stage.

"He would play for me in his living room, and he was just glowing," Archambault said. "All this light coming out of him. You had to put him in front of an audience."

Archambault, now 31, got him gigs. First in California, then Hawai'i. Soon, he was selling out venues as far north as Seattle.

And just like that, Tapia's musical career — and to some degree, Tapia — was reborn.

His music fills audiences with happiness, Archambault said. That's how it was last November, when she organized a 100th birthday celebration at the lavish art-deco Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro.

He played off and on for nearly three hours, then invited everyone in the audience of 900 to join him on stage for cake.

"For me, when he plays, I am not only smiling on the outside, but I am smiling on the inside. ... You fall in love with him every time he plays," Archambault said.

Tapia became a driven performer, releasing his first album — "Tropical Swing" — in 2004 at age 96. He followed that a year later with "Duke of Uke." Both are on Moon Room Records.

Even at 100, he's on stage two or three times a month and still teaching music every day, said his booking agent, Mark Taylor, who sometimes fields complaints from Tapia when he schedules off days during a tour.

"No one should mistake this for a novelty act," Taylor said. "This is a real musician with real chops, charm, wit and humor."

Singer Mihana Souza, who will perform with Tapia in Honolulu, said the musician — she calls him "uncle" — is a moving performer. "He plays a love song and there is love there," she said. "He plays a samba and you are in Argentina."

But none of that is Tapia's true gift.

"The part of this that is so special is that great music comes from a man who breaks all your molds on what it is to age," Souza said. "I think he could go to 120. This is the kind of vitality he has."

None of this is on Tapia's mind. He's having too much fun to worry about being too old. He recently bought a condo in Makaha to use when he visits the Islands and has a dream of creating free concerts on the Leeward beach.

He'd perform, of course.

"Who would ever think that at my age, I would go on the road again and be playing?" he said.

No one, really. But the truth is, his fans are the secret to his longevity.

"To see people happy makes me happier than making money," Tapia said. "What could be better than happiness? You see people happy and clapping and coming up and talking to you, you forget about age. You begin to think you want to grab hold of a young girl and dance with her."