II
Louis
Robert Kauakahi
Mele
¥ Music
The sound rolled through the
still night air and into the house where Louis slept. Stirred from a dream, he
gradually surfaced and identiÞed the boom and roar: Enormous swells at nearby
Mākaha Beach were pounding the reef. As he listened, he heard another
sound whispering through the din. He concentrated, trying to identify the
ghostly voice. It was the echo of the pounding waves reverberating off the
cliffs above his house. Louis could not understand why, at three oÕclock in the
morning, the ocean seemed to be calling to him, but he grabbed a pencil and
began to write down its words. Later, he translated the words into Hawaiian and
composed a melody to convey the haunting quality of his early morning
encounter, and the ballad ÒKāhea o KealeÓ was born.
When Louis joins his voice
to others and adds instrumentation, he breathes life into ÒKāheaÓ and
recreates a power that can change a listenerÕs mood and transport an audience
beyond the walls of a smoky club, perhaps to the cliffs near Mākaha, where
the ocean sings to them. A song writer, like any artist, can only hope the
words and music will continue to come, so the transformation will take place
again and again. But a musicianÕs life, especially in HawaiÔi, has challenges
that go far beyond realizing artistic dreams. The high cost of island living
can make one or two, even three jobs a necessity, with little time left over to
keep a musicianÕs own life in tune, much less the life of a musical group and
the songs it sings.
At the time he wrote ÒKāhea,Ó
Louis Robert Kauakahi had his life under control. He could support himself, his
immediate family, and his guitars. The musical group? Well, Louis played with a
quartet called the Mākaha Sons of NiÔihau, which would become one of the
most successful and inßuential of all Hawaiian music groups. But their
eighteen-year journey to award-winning albums and sellout concerts would not
come easily. Along the way, the members would struggle with poverty, illness,
drug abuse, embezzlement, and death. Changes in popular taste would challenge
them as interest in Hawaiian songs faded and the ÒJawaiianÓ craze took hold.
Eventually, after the group became widely known for its sweet musical
harmonies, even Louis would no longer be able to hold the quartet together.
Among Hawaiian
entertainers, Louis has a reputation as a shy, private person. He lets others
in the group enjoy the spotlight, preferring to concentrate on musical
arrangements, Hawaiian pronunciation, and Þlling in harmony when the Sons
perform. In conversation, Louis, who is forty years old, guards his past and
present with the same discipline he uses to manage all the demands of his
life--classes, concerts, family, league volleyball, and a full-time job with
the National Guard. He squeezes in interviews over the phone, between
rehearsals at the union hall, on the grass after a weekend drill or class, or
during breaks at the recording studio--never at home or at work. And on most
subjects, his replies are as lean as his build and military haircut, and they
become cryptic when the issues get too personal.
LouisÕs story as a
Hawaiian musician begins in the 1970s, when he was a student at Nānākuli
High School on the leeward coast of OÔahu. Nānākuli is an hourÕs
commute from downtown Honolulu, and the isolation before the highway was built,
along with the hot, dry weather, discouraged developers and realtors from
undertaking the transformation that was going on in other areas on OÔahu. The
predominately Hawaiian residents enjoyed serenity, the ocean, open farmlands,
low-cost housing, wide-open beaches, and a strong sense of community among
neighbors. In their backyards, beneath mango and plumeria trees, families such
as the Kauakahis gathered on weekends to play Hawaiian music and eat poi and Þsh
freshly caught from the sea.
LouisÕs father, Robert,
was a professional musician on KauaÔi until he moved to Honolulu in 1940. He
started a family and worked as a stevedore at the Navy ammunition depot and for
Standard Oil. He could Þx cars and trucks, make his own nets, and Þsh the reef
for dinner. But when he played music, when he spoke Hawaiian with older family
members, the outside world disappeared.
His son Louis watched him,
thinking, ÒSomeday, when I get old, IÕm going to play music and talk Hawaiian
too.Ó Louis was the oldest surviving son of thirteen children, of whom only
seven lived to see adulthood. LouisÕs father, who did not Þnish high school,
emphasized the importance of education, and his urgency fell upon Louis. ÒIt
was through me my father would exert his authority.Ó
Louis developed into a
scrawny teenager trying to plan and control his own future while coping with
the stress of having to be the responsible one among siblings who did not care
about school. ÒNobody else in my family was thinking the way I was thinking. At
the time it frustrated me. I felt I had to go to school because nobody else
took an interest in it.Ó
It was not easy being the
only member of his family who graduated from high school. In retrospect, Louis
smiles quietly, perhaps in gratitude for a process that forged the discipline
and convictions he could call on later to help him overcome great obstacles.
During high school, Louis
coped with pressure by keeping busy. He left home and moved in with an aunty so
he could concentrate on studies and his involvement in student government, the
Interact Club, the school band (where he learned how to read music and play the
French horn and trumpet), two part-time jobs, and HawaiÔi Upward Bound--a
series of summer classes for gifted, underprivileged students.
During the 1972 Upward
Bound program, Louis heard two students playing guitar and Ôukulele. ÒI liked
what I was hearing, not knowing it was a Hawaiian song. I stood there and I
listened and I listened, and I thought it was a rock thing that I felt that I
could learn.Ó
The song was ÒKāwika.Ó
A young HawaiÔi trio, a new group called Sunday Mānoa, had used
rock-and-roll guitar licks to transform a traditional Hawaiian chant honoring
King Kalākaua into a contemporary tune. Islanders loved the Þrst Sunday
Mānoa album, Guava Jam. It
was a landmark album at the peak of the Hawaiian Renaissance, which began in
the late sixties as a result of young Hawaiians watching the civil rights
struggles on the U.S. mainland and witnessing the empowerment that came from
the African American communityÕs new-found pride. They began to search for
their own identity and discovered they could play native music and attract
hundreds, sometimes thousands, of paying people, Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians
alike. They resurrected the Hawaiian language, traditional hula, Hawaiian
seafaring arts, healing arts, and the conceptual underpinnings of the Hawaiian
mind. They began teaching the history of Hawaiian disenfranchisement, Hawaiian
displacement. Cultural survival became the imperative in a state that was
becoming increasingly--some would say devastatingly--American.
ÒKāwikaÓ snared
Louis. By himself, he learned two songs off the Guava Jam album, and he formed a high school combo that
memorized and played the rest. His friends called him ÒMoonÓ because he tried
so hard to imitate Peter Moon, Sunday MānoaÕs leader. The nickname
stuck--permanently.
While most graduating
seniors as smart as Moon went on to college, Nānākuli students rarely
considered it seriously. They were eager, Moon said, but lacked money and
direction. ÒI guess it was the right time when the National Guard recruiter
came over.Ó
Before graduation, in
1973, Moon took the military entrance exam and scored high enough for officerÕs
training, but he joined the National Guard as an enlisted man. ÒIf I didnÕt
know how to work as an Indian, I had no business being a chief. So I decided to
start off at the bottom and slowly work my way up.Ó
Moon and his friend and
classmate Jerome Koko, known as Jerry, packed their Ôukulele with them when
they headed off to basic training in Louisiana and then to advanced training in
Oklahoma. The trip, MoonÕs Þrst time away from HawaiÔi, gave him a new
perspective on his home and his culture. ÒI needed a period away from the
islands to actually appreciate the islands.Ó
When the two friends
returned to Nānākuli in 1974, they began studying Hawaiian culture at
a community college near WaiÔanae. Their interest in contemporary native music
ignited after Jerry happened to meet someone at the beach who was jamming on an
Ôukulele. It was Israel KamakawiwoÔole.
Like many Hawaiians, Israel
had grown up hearing music at home and at church, but his family could not
afford voice coaches or piano teachers, so he and his brother Henry, nicknamed
ÒSkippy,Ó learned to sing and play by ear. At WaiÔanae High, Israel and his
friends regularly cut class and set up in the bathroom to practice. ÒWe had
pianos, upright bass, harmonicas, harps, everything. Sneak Õem out of the band
room and push Õem into the bathroom, brah,Ó Israel once told a reporter. ÒIt
was unreal. Fourth period. Bass and all. Four-part harmony. Everybody stay in
class and trip out. Then [during recess] they come inside the bathroom, chicks
and all. We used to pound.Ó
Israel invited Jerry Koko
to stop by his house and play music. A few nights later Jerry, Moon, and their
friend Sam Gray heard music coming from the KamakawiwoÔole home. They played
through the night with the brothers. ÒWe all got together, about six or seven
of us . . . and we just started playing music,Ó Moon said. ÒIt was like, we
play a song, they follow. They play a song, then we follow. . . . Right about
then, we felt we had something. And if we just maybe rehearsed more, practiced
a little bit, we probably could get something together. . . . Of course, our
inspiration came when Gabby heard us play.Ó
During LouisÕs teens,
Gabby Pahinui was a hero, a humble, slack-key guitar player who inspired many
young Hawaiians. Gabby had the talent to become a star, but he was not going to
change to match some promoterÕs deÞnition of success. Even after he became
popular, he kept his job working for the county road crew. He became the father
of thirteen children, enjoyed his beer and his model trains, and to paraphrase
the late Hawaiian journalist Pierre Bowman, over the years his music remained
in tune with the cliffs rising behind GabbyÕs trim Waimānalo home, with
the wind blowing briskly from the nearby sea, with a world that can sing even
as it mourns.
ÒPopsÓ Pahinui was already
there, passed out on a table, when Moon and his music buddies arrived for their
gig at a graduation party. When the boys started singing, Gabby woke up.
ÒSkippy! Skippy! Sing Pops a song. Skippy, please sing Pops a song,Ó he
pleaded. Amazed that Gabby Pahinui knew SkippyÕs name, they pulled themselves
together and dedicated their next song to him. Then Gabby got up and sang with
them.
ÒThat was neat,Ó
remembered Moon. ÒThat was a really, really good experience. And everything
from there just grew. ThatÕs when we started taking everything a little bit
more seriously. Not real serious where we got down to formal rehearsals, but a
little bit more than just a backyard jam.Ó
They named their group the
Mākaha Sons of NiÔihau, because Israel and SkippyÕs mother was from
NiÔihau, a small, privately owned island off KauaÔi where two hundred Hawaiians
still live and speak the native language. The Sons started getting club dates.
Producer Bill Murata heard them at YokoÕs in 1976 and asked if he could record
them. The session took two days. Before their second album came out, the
following year, Jerry Koko dropped out of the group to take care of his ailing
younger brother. After the third album, the Sons became a quartet, with Skippy
KamakawiwoÔole on twelve-string guitar, his brother Israel, the lead vocalist,
on Ôukulele, their new brother-in-law on rhythm guitar (Moon had married one of
their two sisters, Lydia KamakawiwoÔole), and a cousin, Melvin Amina, on bass.
In those days of weaning
away from ÒTiny Bubbles,Ó island people hungered for the new Hawaiian sound,
and critics called the SonsÕ music Òunspoiled,Ó Òpure and simple,Ó and Òdown
home.Ó These qualities captivated Hawaiian elders, and at the same time, the
new songs drew young people who were grateful for a group willing to sing songs
describing the desecration of their native lands. In one set, the Sons might
combine a traditional Hawaiian hymn from their childhood, ÒE Iesū E KuÔu
Kahu,Ó with ÒPakalōlō,Ó IsraelÕs tune about the pleasures of smoking
marijuana, or ÒPule a Ka HakuÓ (The LordÕs Prayer) with ÒLai Toodle,Ó where the
lyrics express contempt for a Caucasian plantation boss riding a big white
horse (ÒHere comes that son of a bitchinÕ haoleÓ).
By 1979 the group was
performing so often that Moon decided to leave the National Guard. Regular
dates at clubs such as HankÕs Place in Kaimukī had given the group some
Þnancial stability, and the freedom to grow. The audience grew, too, though
they were not always attentive. Late arrivals at HankÕs Place wedged into a
small, smoke-Þlled room, and the noisy crowd often jabbered right through the
singing. The audienceÕs idea that the Sons were there to provide background
music challenged Moon to arrange harmonies and instrumentation that would woo
them to listen, perhaps even move them to hula.
Admirers recognized that
these musicians, like their mentor, Gabby Pahinui, were being true to the basic
honesty and sensitivity in Hawaiian music. ÒIf we were to want money more than
our music, our group would never make it,Ó Skippy told the Honolulu
Advertiser in 1981. ÒBut you see, we
love our music, and we now have a way that one day Mākaha Sons going to
show what we got. But itÕs not to prove anything to anybody. ItÕs to prove
something to ourselves--that there is a different way, a different route to
success besides a dog-eat-dog style.Ó
MoonÕs arrangements, the
depth of SkippyÕs convictions, the compelling warmth of IsraelÕs lead vocals,
and the groupÕs unique harmonies, made complete by Melvin Amina, attracted more
and more fans. On a good night at HankÕs Place, the Sons would sing ÒKāhea
o KealeÓ and everyone would get chicken skin--that rare pleasure when a song
transforms your soul; the babbling crowd was stilled at last. But on other
nights, nothing special clicked. Sometimes the group showed up late, or minus a
member or two, or not at all.
ÒBack in the early
eighties,Ó Moon said, Òthe attitude of the group was more lean back, kick back,
just take what comes, not really serious. After the public started noticing us,
and once the group was recognized as a musical attribute to HawaiÔi, then I
felt we had to do something. Now we are in the public eye, and the public knows
of the Mākaha Sons. Everything that we do, both good and bad, will reßect
on the group. . . . We just needed to polish our act.Ó
Polishing their act was
not easy. Major health problems and Þnancial difficulties hounded the group.
Schedules were difficult to make and easy to break. Their manager embezzled a
yearÕs worth of earnings and their family savings, $75,000 altogether. The Sons
never recovered the money. ÒEventually he will get his due,Ó Moon said. Newspapers
and television stations eagerly reported a traffic incident involving Israel;
he punched a man in Waikīkī, who happened to be a pastor, and broke
his jaw. Both KamakawiwoÔole brothers suffered from what is technically termed
Òmorbid obesity,Ó and were frequently in the hospital, struggling with their
weight and complications from it.
Even when the Sons had
some money, the high cost of living on OÔahu required still more. ÒTruthfully,
our music just wasnÕt enough to pay for all the necessities,Ó Moon said about
those years. ÒI told myself, ÔI cannot live like this. I know I can do
something better,Õ because I had the ability to do whatever I wanted.Ó
Eighteen months after
leaving the National Guard, Moon reenlisted. He began working weekdays
(sometimes with weekend drills) and played music Wednesday through Saturday
nights. On those nights, he slept at work to avoid the ninety-minute commute
home. ÒI couldnÕt quit the group, even at times I felt I should. When I Þrst
had that interest in Hawaiian music, I told myself that maybe one day I would
become a professional musician. And now that I was a professional musician, I
committed myself to all the bad, as well as the good. I guess you can say I was
married to Hawaiian music. . . .
ÒIt was frustrating as
heck at that time. Just when I thought the group was really going somewhere,
then something else would come up. Somebody would get sick. Or someone else
would get sick. Or somebody else wouldnÕt show up for performances. Or somebody
would be mad at somebody.Ó
In 1982, ill and
frustrated with MoonÕs attempts to manage the unmanageable, Skippy
KamakawiwoÔole decided to leave the Sons. He and Melvin Amina wanted to start
another group. Two weeks later, Skippy died from a heart attack. A decade
afterward, the memories were still painful for Moon. His throat tightened and
he stopped speaking, searching for words to convey a sense of what he and the
group went through without revealing too much. ÒThe change was drastic in other
ways than music. There were a lot of things that happened when Skippy died. The
group came to a halt, a screeching halt.Ó
The Sons were down to two
performers: Israel and Moon. Looming ahead of them was a six-week engagement--a
gig arranged before Skippy died--at the Ranch House, a popular family
restaurant featuring Hawaiian music.
ÒI called Jerry Koko,Ó
Moon remembered. ÒBefore, whenever the group had nights off, I would just call
Jerry, and if he didnÕt have anything to do, IÕd just jump over to his house
and then heÕd call his brother John, and then John would bring over his bass,
and the music that we played was different from what we as the MŠkaha Sons then
were playing.Ó
The Koko brothers had
full-time day jobs, but they agreed to help out with the Ranch House
commitment. Thirty-odd performances later, the Kokos were part of a group that
felt comfortable together, but the sound still wasnÕt quite right. They took
eleven months off to learn new songs and rearrange old ones. Moon emerged as
the leader; Israel was still the lead vocalist and comic; and with the Kokos,
Jerry on twelve-string lead guitar and John on upright bass, they maintained
the harmonies that had always been the groupÕs forte. ÒThe Ranch House was
calling for us all through the year. I said, ÔWe are not ready.Õ Finally we
went back. . . . They couldnÕt believe that it was the same group. . . . The
sound was closer together. The harmonies were tight; very simple
instrumentation, capitalizing of course on the vocals. We just went from
there,Ó Moon said.
By the mid-1980s, the
public was no longer ßocking to hear Hawaiian music. HankÕs Place had become
the Āina Haina Garden Shop. The Territorial Tavern was turned into a
furniture store, then a law office. The Hawaiian lounge at the Ala Moana Hotel
became a karaoke bar, and the Ranch House was bought by a businessman from
Japan whose twenty-three-year-old son gutted the restaurant, redecorated it
with trendy postmodern doodads, raised the prices, and called it RockchildÕs.
He bankrupted the place, and his father tore it down. Other taverns, other venues
disappeared as well, made extinct by discos, home video, and a campaign against
drunk driving.
Hawaiian musical groups
had to adapt to survive. For some, like the Mākaha Sons, it was enough to
travel more--to the neighbor islands or to the continental United States, where
approximately 72,000 Hawaiians, scattered up and down the West Coast, thirsted
for the real thing.
Other groups added drums
and reggae rhythms from Jamaica to broaden their appeal, just as previous
generations of Hawaiian musicians had appropriated country-western, opera,
jazz, and rock styles.
Islanders had been dancing
to a reggae beat ever since Bob MarleyÕs international triumph in the 1970s, but
in 1990, seemingly overnight, a new hybrid Hawaiian-Jamaican sound called
Jawaiian became the most popular style of music in HawaiÔi. One Jawaiian
recording sold sixty thousand copies--in a state where ten thousand sales meant
a major local hit. Disaffected teenagers, tired of Top Forty music but not
urban enough for rapÕs attitude, craved a new sound and identity.
JawaiianÕs success boosted
sales and bookings for other HawaiÔi musicians, but the reggae-inßuenced groups
drew the headlines and the huge crowds. This trend disturbed native
musicians--those who sang in the Hawaiian language--as well as many serious
observers of Hawaiian culture. They believed native performers should have been
encouraging young people to experience life in a Hawaiian rather than Jamaican
way. Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, a well-known kumu hula, musician, and teacher,
told Honolulu Weekly, ÒI have no
trouble with reggae. In fact, I like reggae music. It represents a peopleÕs
emotions, a peopleÕs culture. But it is the kuleana [province] of the Jamaican
people. . . . The problem is when Hawaiians get lost in someone elseÕs culture.
Time and time again weÕve gotten lost in assimilation, and itÕs so sad because
we have our own rich traditions that take us back to Sky Father and Earth Mother.
. . . Our language is our mana [power]. The word is so very important to
Hawaiians. Our music is based on our language, not the rhythm and percussion of
reggae music.Ó
People associated the Mākaha
Sons of NiÔihau with acoustic, harmonious music in the native language, but the
group had always mixed other styles and languages into their repertoire, from
the ballads their parents had enjoyed in the 1940s and 1950s to reggae and
Tahitian-style songs. The Sons decided to reinforce their traditional
identity--they would continue to focus primarily on songs in the Hawaiian
language. In 1991, as they completed their tenth album, HoÔoluana, Moon insisted on excluding anything Jawaiian and was
uncomfortable when the group decided to end the album with two English-language
tunes.
ÒI just want to try to
keep an identity,Ó Moon said. ÒI felt that once we got into Jawaiian, it would
be even harder for us to backtrack and stay basically Hawaiian. The public knows
the Mākaha Sons as being traditional Hawaiian, at times contemporary
Hawaiian. . . . But whatever we do now, with whatever song, it will sound
Hawaiian, and I will try to keep it that way. Even if itÕs a real contemporary
song, once we get ahold of it, it will sound like it is Hawaiian.Ó
Moon could not deÞne the
ÒHawaiian soundÓ beyond the usual earmarks--Hawaiian language, guitars, upright
bass, and Ôukulele. ÒI cannot explain what it is, but itÕs something that turns
this light bulb in here on. To me, it is basically sticking with the roots,
trying to keep that as a basic foundation of what this group started off with.Ó
Moon recognized the irony
of the Sons being considered a traditional Hawaiian music group and having only
one member who was proÞcient in speaking and understanding the
language--himself. During the recording of HoÔoluana, he had to coach the other singers on pronunciation,
mindful of listeners who would scold Moon for any mispronunciation.
In the groupÕs earliest
days, some Hawaiians drew the Sons aside and told them they should not sing
Hawaiian songs until they could speak the language. ÒYou folks have no business
singing Hawaiian music,Ó they said.
Moon decided to enroll his
daughter in a private preschool where teachers speak only Hawaiian and the
children become ßuent through the language-immersion technique. He studied the
language himself and gradually became comfortable speaking Hawaiian in public.
Moon was motivated by an altercation with a man who insisted the group give up
Hawaiian-language songs until they could all understand the language. Moon told
him, ÒWe feel singing the music will eventually bring us to the language.Ó
ÒNo,Ó the man said,
ÒthatÕs all wrong.Ó
Moon is as picky about
pronunciation as he is about the songs that he selects for the group to sing.
In 1986, Moon decided the Sons should record ÒHoÔōla Lāhui HawaiÔi,Ó
a tune that would become a popular anthem about perpetuating the native race
and culture. But as originally written in English, the words to ÒHoÔōlaÓ
decried the death of Hawaiians. The message changed after the original
English-language lyricist, Dr. Hiram Young, gave his song to Jean Ileialoha
Beniamina, a KauaÔi woman and native speaker who was unable to translate into
Hawaiian the poignancy of the pain being expressed. She in turn gave it to her
mother, Jean Keale, a pure-blooded Hawaiian raised on NiÔihau. ÒShe looked at
all the negative points of what the song had and she turned everything around,Ó
Moon said. ÒShe made it positive. She said not what the people are dying of,
but what can they do. The song described the Hawaiian people as ßowers who will
live, who will continue to survive. . . . Although itÕs true that Hawaiians are
dying, she didnÕt want to bring out the message that way. She said, ÔThey are
not wilted ßowers. They are pretty ßowers.Õ
ÒCommunication is one of
the most important means of change,Ó Moon said. ÒIf you go inside and rant and
rave at somebody, you may not get anything. I wasnÕt for being outspoken. . . .
Instead of trying to say something that would hurt somebody, I would rather not
say anything at all and think about what the situation was and then come out
and say something after I analyzed what I was going to say. This I had to
develop. This I had to learn.Ó
When Moon arranges music
written by someone else, he thinks about the words, what they mean, and tries
to convey their true meaning in the arrangements. ÒI try to let the audience
understand the meaning of the Hawaiian words by the feeling of the music
itself. If the audience can feel what the song is, they have more or less
translated the song--into much more than what it literally meant. That is
basically what I like to see happen. ThatÕs my high.
ÒMy awareness of the
language is [also] making the music more exciting. ItÕs making it more
challenging. The music takes on a new meaning. The culture takes on a new
meaning. I can read into a song and more or less understand what the song is
saying. ThatÕs how I set the mood. . . . Most of the time it will come out
because it has been thought of carefully and then is brought out.Ó
In 1989, when the Sons began
recording HoÔoluana, it was time
to bring together their new work. Their fans had not heard anything new in
three years--a dangerous delay. For any artist, a new batch of songs means
increased radio air play. Air play in HawaiÔi for island musicians means
consideration for a Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award (the stateÕs
equivalent of the mainland music industryÕs Grammy), and winning a
Hōkū generates publicity that revives interest and creates more
listeners, more fans, more inßuence. The SonsÕ previous album, HoÔōla, won Hōkū awards for Traditional Hawaiian
Album of the Year and Group of the Year.
After playing together for
six years, by 1989 the Mākaha Sons were better organized and more
rehearsed than ever before, but they also had more distractions. They were in
constant demand. Organizers of fund-raisers, summer concerts, hula
competitions, and neighbor island shows continually asked them to perform.
IsraelÕs health problems confounded scheduling, as did his ongoing use of
cocaine, marijuana, and crystal methamphetamines. JerryÕs night schooling and
promotion to foreman at a concrete casting company were two more complications.
John worked full-time at WayneÕs Upholstery, and MoonÕs responsibilities to the
National Guard included two weeks of summer drills and other mandatory classes
on the mainland. All of them had families and children.
HoÔoluana took more than three years to complete. The Sons
worked with a new manager named Kata Maduli, producer Lea Uehara, and engineer
Jim Linkner at Dolphin Sound, a small recording studio at a television station
in the Honolulu industrial district. First, the Sons went into the studio and
recorded their instrumentals, repeating take after take until the sections were
perfect. The vocals came next, chorused repeatedly until all the words were
pronounced correctly and the harmonies were true. A choir from a hālau
hula sang background vocals, and then strings and a harpist from the Honolulu
Symphony were added. Jim and Kata tinkered with the sound fragments and brought
twenty-four tape tracks together. When the album was released, Honolulu
Star-Bulletin music critic John
Berger said HoÔoluana Òdisplays
the exquisiteness of their music. . . . Cultural pride and music virtuosity
permeate the album from start to Þnish. . . . This is an album with no low
points. . . . All Hawaiian-language albums should be produced and packaged this
well.Ó
When the NBC ÒTodayÓ show
visited OÔahu in 1991, they invited the Sons to perform one of the songs in
English from HoÔoluana, Kui LeeÕs
ÒIÕll Remember You.Ó Roughly three-and-a-half million viewers heard the Sons
that morning, but as he played, Moon realized that few of them would ever sit
down and listen to the album or truly understand the world the Sons sang about
in Hawaiian.
To reach tourists, local
musicians need a name, and an act, and a promotional budget that few groups can
maintain. Furthermore, they are at the mercy of tour packagers who sell
activities to big tour groups, activities that salesmen pitch and book in
banquet rooms the mornings after tourists arrive en masse. Do they want a trip
to the neighbor islands? Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay? A circle OÔahu tour? A lūÔau
at GermaineÕs or Paradise Cove? Maybe the Polynesian Cultural Center, or
TihatiÕs Polynesian Revue?
If a show wants the
tourists, it has to pay the tour packager a commission for each person lured to
the showroom. The higher the commission, the better the sales pitch. As a
result only a few big shows can afford the advertising and commissions to keep
people coming. This is no guarantee, however, because the major tour companies
also have to like the shows they sell. If one says it does not want a particular
song or dance included in a lūÔau performance, the song or dance may have
to be removed. So may an individual performer. Without the major travel
companiesÕ sales teams, the Polynesian revues would not survive.
These revues employ many
native musicians and hula teachers. A few of the shows give viewers a fairly
authentic Hawaiian cultural experience, but most of the big revues are a little
bit of this and that Polynesia, with the emphasis on hula, Tahitian drum
dances, and the mandatory Samoan Þre knife dancer. Most tourists, sucking up
mai-tais or beer, cannot say which dance is Hawaiian and most do not care. The
average visitor just wants to be entertained--if not at a lūÔau, then at a
club with a disc jockey or a karaoke machine. For those who want more than a
sunset serenade by the pool, they have to Þnd the handful of OÔahu bars,
restaurants, and special events that offer the real thing. As a result, only a
few Hawaiians playing beyond the lūÔau circuit can subsist solely on their
music.
A few minutes away from
the hotels, clubs, and revues, the Waikīkī Shell has been a favorite
site for Hawaiian musicians for many years. The Shell is an outdoor
amphitheater near Diamond Head. It seats only 6,500 people, but the setting
enables local entertainers to attract crowds without compromising their program
for tourists. In 1980 a popular Hawaiian group could make money performing at
the Shell either by itself or perhaps with one other act. But as interest in
Hawaiian music declined in the mid-1980s, a successful concert had to offer a
mixture of hula, comedy, and song. In 1988 a promoter persuaded the Sons to
headline their own ÒMākaha BashÓ at the Shell. Despite an assortment of
nightmares (Heart attack strikes bankrupt promoter, threatening Bash until
rescue by SonsÕ friend), the Bash became an annual Memorial Day weekend success
up until 1993--the year Israel KamakawiwoÔole decided to stop using drugs,
start losing weight, and leave the Sons to perform on his own.
People who have followed
the group over the years have watched more than once as its heart has missed a
beat. After Skippy passed away, in 1982, and the Koko brothers joined the
group, IsraelÕs enthusiasm for music helped the Sons not just to survive but to
continue perfecting their distinctive harmonies. The SonsÕ fans always
returned, conÞdent that Israel would transform an evening of Hawaiian music
into a memorable night and leave them aching from laughter. Israel is a
Hawaiian who cares deeply about his land and his people, and he voices his
concerns in the introduction and dedication for each song. This underlying
seriousness, along with his humorous patter and sweet singing voice, make
Israel an exceptional entertainer, but until 1993 his enthusiasm for drugs
jeopardized his health and ability to perform.
When Israel missed gigs,
Moon empathized both with IsraelÕs pain and with the disappointment of an
audience deprived of IsraelÕs entertainment. ÒHe has that gift,Ó Moon said. ÒIf
I was given the mike, I would freeze up on stage. He is the show for the
audience. . . . When the group is whole, all four performing at our peak, there
is nothing more the audience can ask for.Ó
When IsraelÕs health
deteriorated again, in 1991, Kata Maduli called on island musicians to join in
what he saw as a life-saving effort. He decided to promote Israel as the
groupÕs headliner--ÒIsrael KamakawiwoÔole and the Mākaha Sons of
NiÔihauÓ--hoping that IsraelÕs fondness for the spotlight would help him take a
turn for the better. He also produced IsraelÕs Þrst solo album, which featured
songs that went beyond the SonsÕ traditional Hawaiian music. An enthusiastic
outpouring of support buoyed Israel up, and on May 26, 1991, the full
complement of Sons hosted their fourth Mākaha Bash at the
Waikīkī Shell.
Kata lined up a television
crew to videotape the Bash, which featured three hālau hula, two Jawaiian
groups, and song stylist (and Hōkū award winner) Teresa Bright. As
for the SonsÕ program, concert promoters usually give the headline group an
hour to rush through a scripted selection of predictable songs, songs the
audience expects to hear. But for this Þfteenth anniversary celebration, Kata
invited various friends of the Sons to join the group onstage. They shared
duets and conversations about the past, and the concert became a relaxed and
spontaneous songfest, moving the audience from one mood and place to another.
Israel paid tribute to his parents by singing their favorite ballad, ÒThe Art
of Making Love.Ó He honored his NiÔihau grandfather with MoonÕs song ÒKāhea
o Keale.Ó Singer Melveen Leed reminded the crowd that the Sons and the late
Gabby Pahinui had been members of a mutual admiration society. Then she asked
the group to play one of GabbyÕs choice songs, ÒWai o Ke Aniani.Ó ÒVery, very
slow,Ó she instructed them, Òwith a lot of mana going through the body.Ó
As she sang the words
about water, rain began to fall and continued until the song ended. During the
encore, when the crowd demanded another song, Israel asked the Sons to play a
song that Skippy had made famous. It was ÒHawaiÔi Õ78Ó--Mickey IoaneÕs
English-language lament about how pained the aliÔi from times past would feel
if they could see HawaiÔi today. The angry undercurrent in the song had always
disturbed Moon, but he set aside his feelings, as he always had before, and
sang as if the songÕs tears were his own. Rain began to fall again.
In the dark, along the
back fence of the amphitheater, groups of young local boys, adolescents too
cool to sit among the families and couples on the lawn, stopped talking and
sang the words they all knew by heart. A girl sitting near the stage turned to
her father and exclaimed, ÒSkippyÕs here! ThatÕs SkippyÕs song! The rain means
SkippyÕs here because thatÕs his song!Ó
The encore pushed the
concert beyond 9:30 p.m., the
Department of HealthÕs noise curfew for Shell concerts. The guest performers
went onstage and held hands in front of the Mākaha Sons. The crowd stood
up and linked hands in long strings across the sweeping amphitheater. They
closed the evening with ÒHawaiÔi Aloha,Ó composed a hundred years ago by an
America-born minister, Reverend Lorenzo Lyons. It is traditionally sung at the
conclusion of Hawaiian events, and if not everyone remembers the words to all
the verses, few people forget the rejoicing chorus, ÒÔOli e! ÔOli e!Ó For the six thousand people at the Shell that
night, ÒHawaiÔi AlohaÓ was more than a parting ritual. As they swayed in time
with the solemn, sweet melody and sang out their love for the islands, everyone
in the crowd felt part of a community that was--at that moment--harmonious.
E HawaiÔi, e kuÔu one
hānau e,
KuÔu home kulaīwi nei,
ÔOli nō au i nā pono
lani e,
E HawaiÔi, aloha e.
E hauÔoli e nā Ôōpio
o HawaiÔi nei
ÔOli e! ÔOli e!
Mai nā aheahe makani e
pā mai nei
Mau ke aloha, nō HawaiÔi.
O HawaiÔi, O sands of my
birth,
My native home,
I rejoice in the blessings of
heaven.
O HawaiÔi, aloha.
Happy youth of HawaiÔi
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Gentle breezes blow
Love always for HawaiÔi.
The concert carried the
Sons through the rest of a remarkable Þfteenth anniversary year. IsraelÕs
improved health already had revived the group and he had won Hōkū
awards for his solo album. The Bash was a success, both musically and
Þnancially, and so was the television program that followed. Critics and fans
praised the groupÕs new live concert and studio albums. Throughout the
islandwide recession, Kata Maduli continued to book the group, enabling them to
support their families, and the ÒTodayÓ show gave them national exposure. Few
HawaiÔi musicians would ask for more. But Moon and Israel did.
Israel wanted to be free
of drugs, free of 350 pounds, free of welfare (since his weight made it
impossible for him to hold a nine-to-Þve job), and free of MoonÕs stylistic
limitations so Israel could record music his own way. When Israel Þnally made
the break, in 1993, he felt great, and a critic called his solo album
Òexceptional . . . one of the most signiÞcant Hawaiian albums of [that] year.Ó
But the fallout from IsraelÕs departure, widely publicized by the media, became
uglier than most divorces.
Any other group might have
disintegrated, but Moon and the Koko brothers had already played numerous gigs
without Israel, and Jerry took his turn enjoying the spotlight. They knew they
could survive as a trio, now called the Mākaha Sons.
In
the liner notes for the groupÕs 1994 album, ÒKe Alaula, The Dawning,Ó Moon
wrote, ÒWhen we first formed, we dreamed of someday earning the same respect
given [the pioneers of Hawaiian music], including the Sons of HawaiÔi, Gabby
Pahinui, the Sunday Mānoa, the Kahauanu Lake Trio, among others.
ÒThe
road was an uphill struggle, seemingly with only our ambitions to guide us. At
times it was frustrating to the point of wanting to abandon our attempts to
continue. Yet, these giants of Hawaiian music served as beacons of hope, giving
us musical encouragement and the will to continue. To us, these legends were
our sunrise, our original rays of light, our guides to what we hoped would be a
promising future for us; just as the prior generations now set below their own
horizons had been the models for them.
ÒIn
our innocence we too wanted to become legends. But today, with eleven albums .
. . we still continue in our quest to perpetuate the music of HawaiÔi, both old
and new, seeking to expand our horizons, to explore other opportunities, with
more sunrises yet to experience.
ÒÔKe Alaula,Õ the dawning, is a new
horizon, a new sunrise, a new ray of hope in the continuing legacy of the
Mākaha Sons. We set forth almost twenty years ago when our flame was first
lit and burned brightly. Over the years often the flame did flicker, but like
the sun, the promise to shine again was always there. And with every flicker,
we were fortunate that a new ray did give us the hope and the promise to
continue.
ÒWehe
Ôia ke alaula no nā hanauna nei, a no nā hanauna ehiki mai ana--thus
the dawning of a new era emerges for this generation and for the generations to
come.Ó