Here, after years of preparation, is the most ambitious book ever written about Hawaiian music - its roots, popularity and influences in the world, leading personalities and groups, organizations, songs, and publications. The complete story is here, from ancient chants to the flowering of the musical renaissance in Hawaii nei. Nearly 200 illustrations add to the book's appeal for Hawaiian music fans and serious students. Many rare photographs of historical interest are among the illustrations featuring singers, chanters, dancers, and instrumentalists. Musical instruments are also featured in drawings and photographs. Melody lines, chants, and rhythm patterns are illustrated by music notation. The book is organized like an encyclopedia, with about 200 entries in alphabetical order. They include biographies of musicians from every period of Hawaiian musical history - from Henry Berger, David Kalakaua, Queen Lili'uokalani, and others of her time, to the great names of the first half of the twentieth century, and on to the performers and composers of today's Hawaiian renaissance. There are major articles on chant, slack key, steel guitar, 'ukulele, himeni, Hawaiian orchestras, falsetto, humor in Hawaiian music, radio, television, and the recording industry to name a few. Definitive essays tell the story of all ancient and modern musical instruments and the most loved and important songs of the last 150 years. Much of the material is new or original and fresh insights are brought to the more familiar topics. Some myths are dispelled, long-standing controversies discussed, if not settled. For instance, the book comes closer to answering the question "what is Hawaiian music?" than anything written so far. The work also contains and extensive annotated bibliography of works on Hawaiian music, and two discographies.

This book is a definitive chronicle of the history of Hawaiian music, the people who made it, and the footprints they left in the sands of Hawai'i. Here John Beger finishes what George S. Kanahele started years ago and brings closure to his spectacular legacy as a Hawaiian historian, scholar and author.

One of Hawaii's "living treasures" is the subject of this biography, Hawaiian Son: The Life and Music of Eddie Kamae. It celebrates the personal journey of an extraordinary musician and pioneering filmmaker, Eddie Kamae. The book was written by award-winning author James D. Houston (1933-2009) in close collaboration with Kamae, and was designed by Barbara Pope of Honolulu-based 'Ai Pohaku Press. The 260-page book includes more than 60 historical photographs, drawings and album covers that help to chart the high points of an influential career that has spanned more than half a century. As a young man in the late 1940s, Kamae developed a jazz picking style that forever changed the status of the ukulele. He became its reigning virtuoso. For 20 years the legendary band he founded with Gabby Pahinui, The Sons of Hawaii, played a leading role in the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. By the mid 1970s Kamae himself had become a folk-hero, known for his instrumental genius and for a vigorous singing style that carries the spirit of an ancient vocal tradition into the 21st century. During the 1980s, while continuing to perform, arrange, and lead the band, Kamae launched a second career as a filmmaker, once again proving to be a cultural pioneer. In documentaries such as Listen to the Forest and Words, Earth & Aloha he found a filmic voice that speaks from deep within his own island world. Kamae's personal journey is measured by the many teachers Kamae, now 85, has met along the way, from Mary Kawena Pukui and Pilahi Paki, to 'Iolani Luahine, San Li'a Kalainaina, and "Papa" Henry Auwae. Dancers and singers, storytellers, healers, and elders have guided him in his long quest to find the sources of a rich tradition and thus to find himself.

(Fretted). The term "steel guitar" can refer to instruments with multiple tunings, 6 to 14 strings, and even multiple fretboards. To add even more confusion, the term "Hawaiian guitar" refers to an instrument played flat on the lap with a steel bar outside of Hawaii, but in Hawaii, it is the early term for the slack key guitar. Lorene Ruymar clears up the confusion in her new book that takes a look at Hawaiian music; the origin of the steel guitar and its spread throughout the world; Hawaiian playing styles, techniques and tunings; and more. Includes hundreds of photos, a foreword by Jerry Byrd, and a bibliography and suggested reading list.

Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of k&299;k&257; kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.