For all of its variants and permutations — traditional chant to lilting steel guitar, 'ukulele jazz to slick contemporary Hawaiian, smooth slack-key and falsetto to jouncing Jawaiian, hapa-haole pop ditties to Jack Johnson-style surf rock — the music of Hawai'i's past and present has always managed to evoke a sense of place that is unmistakably Hawai'i.
The original music of Hawai'i was as functional as it was expressive, with chant, or mele, performed solo or in combination with hula (often with additional instrumentation from ipu heke gourds and other percussive devices) for a singular performative experience.
As in other cultures, ancient chant served a number of purposes: invocation of religious or spiritual figures, prayer, genealogical recording, storytelling and many others.
With the opening of Hawaiian ports came a massive influx of foreign influences, including a wide variety of musical styles.
Western Europeans brought instruments like piano, flute and accordion. Missionaries brought religious hymns and European-style choruses. Portuguese workers brought an early form of what would be known as the 'ukulele. Mexican cowboys recruited to work on Hawaiian ranches brought the guitar, which Hawaiian players adapted to their own traditional music by down-tuning the strings — the origin of slack-key.
The origins of steel guitar have been in perpetual dispute, but its sustained, doleful tones came to characterize generations of Hawaiian music up to the present day.
The evolving Hawaiian sound, a curiosity at first, quickly gained favor in the United States and Europe through the compositions of Queen Lili'uokalani and through performances by traveling Hawaiian musicians.
The export of Hawaiian music began in earnest after a successful showing at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and performers like the Tau Moe Family and Jenny Wilson toured extensively.
The popularity of Hawaiian music grew through the mid-20th century with the development of so-called hapa-haole Hawaiian music, singable Hawaiian-inflected songs with English lyrics popularized through the syndicated Hawaii Calls radio show.
With the 1960s and '70s came a conscious return to traditional Hawaiian influences, thanks to gifted performers such as Gabby Pahinui and Eddie Kamae, both of whom honed their skills with American jazz before reconnecting to their Island roots. Kamae, as much a scholar as a musician, found inspiration in the compositions of Lili'uokalani and other seminal figures and, with Pahinui, helped forge a new indigenous sound with the Sons of Hawaii.
The group's tradition-based yet innovative use of slack-key and steel guitar, Pahinui's elemental falsetto, 'ukulele and Pacific-Western synthesized structures made them an instant hit in the Islands.
Building on this momentum, a new movement of contemporary Hawaiian musicians like the Beamer Brothers, Olomana, Kalapana, and Cecilio and Kapono helped usher Hawaiian music into mainstream local radio in the 1970s and '80s, helping to establish a local music scene that has flourished ever since.
While the ensuing years have produced scores of talented and influential acts — Keali'i Reichel, Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom and Ho'okena, among others — none has raised Hawaiian music's profile on the world stage higher than Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, the larger-than-life performer whose disarming stage presence and riveting, personal recordings made him an international star that every local community wanted to embrace as its own.
It was only after his death in 1997, an event that saw mourners overflow the state Capitol where his body lay in state, that "Bruddah Iz" realized his broadest appeal. The posthumous "Alone in IZ World" cracked the Billboard 200 chart and was No. 1 on the Top World Albums chart. His plaintive medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" has been used in several films and TV shows.
The broad appeal of Hawaiian music was acknowledged in 2005 when the Grammy Awards introduced a Hawaiian music category. The award went to the recording "Slack Key Guitar, Vol. 2."
